
Ifi' 



m ,*»■ sin 







CopyriglitN^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSfR 



Three Weeks 

in the British Isles 



Uniform with this Volume 



Three Weeks in Europe 



Three Weeks in 
Holland and Belgium 

By 

John U. Higinbotham 

These delightful books are invaluable to those 
about to make their first trip abroad. They 
are not guides, but are full of just the neces- 
sary information and pertinent suggestions — all 
presented in clear, readable form, beautifully 
illustrated. To those who cannot take the trip, 
these books prove a most welcome substitute. 

12mos. Decorative covers ; 50 full-page half- 
tone pictures. Price $1.50 each. 




A BIT OF MELROSE ABBEY 



THREE WEEKS 

IN THE 

BRITISH 
ISLES 



BY 



JOHN U. HIGINBOTHAM 




CHICAGO 

THE REILLY & BRITTON CO. 

PUBLISHERS 






COPTKIGHTj 1911, 
BY 

THE REILLY & BRITTON CO. 



Three Weeks in the British Isles 



C CI.A2S30S2 



To the Members of 

The Press Cluh of Chicago 

Who have made of me a great deal more titan I am. 
This hook is respectfully dedicated 



PREFACE 

The person who tries to see what he can of a 
foreign country in a Hmited time draws the fire 
from two sources. The man who stays at home 
refuses to beHeve that anything worth while can 
be accomplished in the time allotted. The man 
of leisure who spends whole years abroad de- 
clares that only blurred outlines are visible to 
the hurried traveler. Both are right in a degree. 
Neither is wholly right. The hurried tourist 
would gladly exchange places with the leisurely 
sojourner in the beauty spots of the world, but 
rejoices over what he does see and goes again at 
the first opportunity. His wings can never again 
be fitted with comfort into the stay-at-home 
cocoon. 

It is the fashion to smile at the idea of seeing 
anything in a foreign country in a shorter time 
than three months. This has constructed a bar- 
rier across the road to broader culture and 
accomplishment of many a person. 

As a matter of fact, more can be seen abroad 
in three weeks than can be seen at home in an 
entire summer. Distances are shorter between 
noteworthy objects. The unusual grips the 
attention at every turn. 



Preface 

So appreciable and appreciated is the annual 
expenditure of Americans abroad that the 
"sights" are displayed with the art of a veteran 
* showman. Trains, hotels, and guides are all 
arranged to give you the most in the shortest 
time. 

In the British Isles there is no bugaboo of a 
foreign language ; there is a countless number of 
landmarks linking the past, our past as well as 
theirs, with the present; and there is a hospi- 
tality based on kinship which you will never 
Cf appreciate until you have tested it. Undoubtedly 
a long vacation is preferable. We have no quar- 
rel with anyone on that score. But three weeks 
^ is better than no loaf at all. 

John U. Higinbotham. 
Chicago, October, 1910, 



Three Weeks in 
The British Isles 



London Shops and Streets 



lOME was not built in a day, and London 
cannot be "done" in a year. The alert 

traveler with an intelligent guide and a 

good carriage and pair can see more in 
London in a day than in any other metropolis in 
a season, and more than the average Londoner 
sees in his delightful old city in a lifetime. There 
is so much forest that the Londoner fails to see 
the trees. He neglects the large things and is 
ignorant of many of the small ones. 

A mere catalogue of those who have had their 
names written large in the world's history and 
who have been identified with London would be 
exhausting if it was at all exhaustive. 

Are you an artist? Here were the homes of 
Gainsborough, Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner and 
Van Dyke. Are you a student of history ? Trace 
here, in addition to the footsteps of England's 
rulers, some of the giant strides of Bliicher, a 
host of Bonapartes, Charles V of Spain, Charles X 

9 



10 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

of France, Give, Cornwallis, Oliver Cromwell. 
Kossuth, Louis Philippe, Nelson, Peter the Great 
and Wellington. 

Lovers of the drama find here a stage once 
trod by Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, Kean and 
Shakespeare. 

If you begin to muster the great names of 
literature who have lived in London, your pen 
falters at the magnitude of the task. Addison, 
Bacon, Macaulay, Lamb, Boswell, Moore, Lyt- 
ton, Bunyan, Milton, Thackeray, Butler, Walton, 
Shelley, Byron, Dickens, Dryden, Hood, Fielding, 
Gibbon, Goldsmith, Guizot, Johnson and Keats 
are some of those who have called this big city 
their home. 

Thomas a Becket was born behind the mercers' 
chapel in Poultry Lane. Swedenborg resided in 
Great Bath Street and was buried in a little 
churchyard on Ratcliff Highway. Mme. de Stael 
lived at 30 Argyle Street. 

The list is endless. This huge magnet has 
drawn to it the great of every age and clime. 
To locate and study their way-marks would be 
the work of a lifetime and not the task of a 
tourist. But the most rapid traveler is helped 
to a proper appreciation of his surroundings by a 
mere perusal of these names. 

We had seen the star attractions of the world's 
metropolis seven years before. As every one 



London Shops and Streets II 

knows, the list includes Westminster Abbey, The 
Tower, St. Paul's, The British Museum and the 
National Gallery. Therefore, our problem was 
simplified. We would just sit down and plan 
our trip through the British Isles and give Lon- 
don only enough of one day to keep her from 
feeling slighted. 

"Sitting down" in London, when a lady forms 
the majority of your party, is generally done in 
front of a counter in some Regent Street shop. 
The rainy weather made this the only practical 
thing to do on our first day ashore. 

London shops are restful. There is a mildness 
of voice on the part of the salesman or woman 
that you desire to take home with you, even more 
than the goods displayed. This modulated tone 
is made possible by the comparative quiet of the 
streets. Just what a Londoner would do if he 
came down town some morning and was greeted 
with the roar of an elevated train and the clang 
of a trolley gong is difficult to imagine. 

Not only are the voices mild, the manner is 
equally self-efTacing. No thoroughly trained 
sales person would try to force an opinion on a 
customer. All statements are made tentatively 
and switched to an interrogation at the con- 
clusion. 

"You wouldn't want any heavier material, now 
would you ?" 



12 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

"There are cheaper shops, of course, but you 
wouldn't like those, would you?" and so on. 

There are few things that you can buy in 
London to sufficient advantage to pay for the 
trouble of getting them home. The average 
traveler will not be troubled by the tariff, for 
each person can bring in one hundred dollars' 
worth free of duty, but there is the burden of 
unbosoming your soul and divulging the inner- 
most secrets of your laundry bag to the customs 
officer at the home port. This ordeal is a more 
efficient barrier against foreign purchases than 
the amount of duty. 

Add to this the fact that the large American 
houses have buyers in all foreign countries who 
are as well known for keen judgment as the 
tourist is for extravagance, and you can readily 
see that the margin is practically wiped out. 

What you will gain in quality of material you 
will lose in style. That is not intended as a 
reflection on English style. It may be correct, 
but it is different, and, after all, you must wear 
the garments in America and not in England, 
and they do not look "right" after you get them 
home. 

Gloves and underwear are bargains in London. 
Hats, hose and clothing are cruel jests when you 
return to your own fireside. 

Nevertheless, we shopped so long that when 



London Shops and Streets 13 

we went to Cook's office to inquire for mail, that 
department was closed and the uniformed official 
said : "It's gone six, sir." 

We miss one other source of noise on the 
London streets. Newsboys are not permitted to 
cry their wares. Not a peep may they utter. 
They carry sheets on which the principal news of 
the day is headlined, and they turn these over and 
point to them in mute appeal. 

Traveling in taxicabs, Americans crouch down 
a little each time they pass another vehicle on the 
left, but gradually become accustomed to it. 
These vehicles, the chariots of the reckless spend- 
thrift in New York, charge sixteen cents for the 
first half mile and four cents for each additional 
quarter. A small tip is added, but the rides are 
very cheap, and there are thousands of cars in 
operation. 

In the evening we attended a musical comedy. 
We had seen companies of splendid artists in 
legitimate drama in London and were hardly pre- 
pared for the drivel which runs for a year or 
more under the name of musical comedy. The 
stage settings are superb and the illusion is per- 
fect so far as scenery and lighting can make it. 
It is when the dialogue commences that you 
realize that your elaborate frame encloses a 
chromo. 

The lack in quality is made worse by a 



14 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

liberality in quantity. The curtain rises promptly 
at eight and the performance continues until 
after eleven. 

Tea is served between acts. Injunctions would 
be better. Programs are twelve cents each, 
bringing the cost of balcony seats up to two 
dollars. Ticket brokers abound in London, but 
they charge a fixed commission of a shilling a 
ticket and do not command all of the desirable 
seats in the house. Their use is a matter of 
convenience. We bought our seats at the box 
office half an hour before the curtain arose and 
had good locations. 

After the theater we walked back to the hotel 
past a procession of cabs. In 1904 London had 
eleven thousand cabs and thirty-five hundred 
buses. The introduction of thousands of taxi- 
cabs is making serious inroads into the business 
of horse-drawn vehicles. 

The London bobby holds all of this army of 
chariots in the hollow of his hand with an ease 
that has made him the wonder and admiration 
of the world. Back of him is a wall of public 
sentiment that believes in the enforcement of 
the law. 

Our hotel is eighty years old, and seems to 
have been built in different places and assembled 
on the lot where it stands. Consequently you are 
continually going up or down two or three wholly 



London Shops and Streets 15 

unaccountable steps. As a further incentive to 
sobriety, the knob is placed in the middle of the 
door, two feet from the keyhole. It has nothing 
to do with the catch, but is used for closing the 
door. 

There is no running water in the room. There 
rarely is in foreign hotels unless the roof leaks. 

In the morning I arise before, the newsboys. 
At 8:30 I make quite a search for a newspaper. 
Finally the tube is suggested. I there find a vender 
just taking down his shutters. A selection is 
made from a motley assortment of penny and 
half-penny sheets, pamphlets and illustrated 
dailies. There is great rivalry in the business 
of publishing periodicals. The bill boards are 
covered with conspicuous advertisements offering 
premiums in all sorts of contests. 

We hear an occasional expression that is not 
current at home. 

An Englishman's comment on a large building 
is : "That took some doing, what ?" 

A party of gentlemen sit near us at dinner. 
They are joined by a late comer, who says : "You 
chaps outstepped me." 

The messenger boys attract our notice. They 
are miniature Tommy Atkinses with pill-box caps 
cocked over their ears. They manage to look 
red-cheeked and smiling on a wage of $1.60 a 
week. 



i6 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



One company employs girls and uniforms them 
in red dresses with red caps. They are called 
"Busy Bees," and can be seen running errands 
or carrying packages at all hours. The employ- 
ment is hardly a fit one for young girls, as they 
develop a quality of repartee more forceful than 
polite. 

After breakfast, it starts raining again, so we 
do some more shopping. A black robe is shown. 
It is too long. The saleswoman said with a sigh : 
"You cawn't cut the tile off very much, can you ?" 
and produced one without so much "tile." The 
new one will answer, with a few alterations. 

"You can do that better at 'ome, cawn't you?" 
was the smiling suggestion, and we make the 
purchase. 

That pronunciation of "tile" reminds me of an 
amusing complication due to the mispronuncia- 
tion of long a by many Londoners. We buy an 
article and request that it be sent to the hotel. 

"What nime, please ?" 

We start to spell it, "H-i-g" and they invariably 
write, "H-a-g." We say, "The second letter is i." 

"Yes, sir, I 'ave it, sir," and we either write it 
out or drop the matter. 

Londoners never beg your pardon. Everyone, 
from the pushcart man to the duke, if he collides 
with you, murmurs, "Sorry," and goes on his 
way. 



London Shops and Streets 17 

We rode down the Strand and Fleet Street, 
past many historic localities. Just off Fleet 
Street in Wine Office Court is the Old Cheshire 
Cheese, one of London's few remaining old-time 
inns. Within its dining room we occupied the 
hard straight-backed benches near Samuel John- 
son's corner, where he sat almost daily at the 
head of the table. The place is marked by a 
brass tablet, and by less beautiful but more con- 
vincing spots on the wall where the back of his 
large head rested. The room seats thirty people, 
as it did in Johnson's day. Its patronage is 
select rather than large. There are many other 
rooms in the building. One is set aside for ladies 
who want liquor with their meals. No drinks are 
served in the dining room "proper'-' and no 
females are permitted to patronize the bar, for 
fear of the effect of a bad example on the bar- 
maids. 

The Cheese was rebuilt in 1667 and is practically 
unchanged. Notwithstanding the fact that it is 
the shrine at which a great many people worship 
the memory of dead and gone celebrities, the 
service is as good and the prices are as reason- 
able as at any first-class restaurant in London. 
The cuisine is excellent. You cannot get a better 
chop in London, and that means, in the world. 

We miss the famous meat or lark pudding 
which is served on certain days of the week, but 



i8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

we sample the toasted cheese for which the house 
is famous and purchase some of its cutlery and 
dishes. 

Here, again, the management restrains itself 
and sells these souvenirs at a figure that would 
shame the most confirmed hotel kleptomaniac 
into temporary honesty. 

We are shown through the building. The 
kitchen is on the second floor. There are many 
private dining rooms which are used by clubs of 
various sorts. William's Room commemorates a 
much-loved head waiter who has passed away. 

Samuel Johnson's chair and one of the first 
copies of his dictionary are proudly displayed in 
an upper chamber. 

Near this alley, Wine Office Court, is 17 Gough 
Square, where Johnson lived for many years. 
The London Press Club has quarters in the court 
and helps to maintain the literary and convivial 
flavor of the neighborhood. 

Izaak Walton's millinery shop was in the 
vicinity, and the church of which he was an hon- 
ored warden for many years is not far away. 
Millinery and religion have wandered hand in 
hand in other communities. 

My informant dwelt lovingly on the stock joke 
regarding Izaak Walton. "You see, sir, he fished 
for souls on Sunday," a bit of persiflage that 
was handed us by a guide and two bus drivers 
later in the same day. 



London Shops and Streets 19 

It has quit raining for a while, so we ride back 
to Trafalgar Square on top of a bus. We take 
the front seat and hand the driver a sixpence as 
we propound an inquiry. 

He holds the coin in the center of his big palm 
for a moment, places his hand to his mouth, and 
tosses back his head like a chicken drinking 
water. After allowing about the usual slot 
machine time for it to release the mechanism, he 
gravely replies. 

From that on, he is voluble. The way to 
Covent Garden just ofif the Strand is pointed out. 
The old market place is busier in the early 
morning now than it was when Nell Gwynn 
turned the heads of King and court in the near-by 
theater. 

"Right down there, sir, on the bank of the 
river, is Cleopatrick's needle." 

The Strand is not far from the Thames, of 
which it formed an embankment at one time. 
Somerset House is re-christened by the driver 
"Somerville 'Ouse," where the births and deaths 
are registered. 

Gladstone's monument stands in front of St. 
Clement Dane's Church. "Han Hamerican gent 
said as 'ow 'e got hup a bag, sir, has was named 
hafter 'im." 

This is said interrogatively, as though the 
Hamerican gent might have been spoofing. 



20 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Behind the church stands an unveiled monu- 
ment. 

"Been sacked hup that wy for a month, sir, an' 
now the King dyin', no teUin' wen they'll hun- 
cover it, sir." 

Temple Bar, once the easterly boundary of the 
city, is gone, but the place is marked by a hand- 
some monument bearing the effigies in bas-relief 
of Victoria and Edward VII. 

A model of the old gate decorates the entrance 
to Temple Bar Inn, near by. 

We are awakened the next morning by the 
tooting of coach horns. This is Derby Day, and, 
notwithstanding the bad weather and the double 
loss of King and stable owner, many are going 
to Epsom Downs to see the races. The attend- 
ance was smaller than usual, however. 

If the day had been brighter we would* have 
gone, if only to gaze on the scene, where, -accord- 
ing to- Henry James, gypsy matrons, "as genuine 
as possible, with, glowing Oriental eyes," ofifer 
you, for a sixpences "the promise of everything 
genteel- in life, except the aspirate," including* all 
that heaven contains except the "h." 

Our time is too limited for frivolity, so with 
carriage and guide we try to see as many of the 
"little things" of London as can be viewed in a 
short drive. 



London Sights 21 



II 

London Sights 



HpnjE start from Trafalgar Square, pass the 
■ I fJ towering Nelson Monument and the 
B J^JI statue of Charles I, and turn down 
Whitehall Street, on whose pavement, 
in front of the Royal Service Museum, is a plate 
marking the place of execution of the same un- 
happy King. 

A glance up Downing Street shows the house 
of the Prime Minister and its iron fence, where 
the women of the suffragist movement chained 
themselves and refused to move. 

Parliament House is on your left, strung along 
the bank of the Thames for nearly one thousand 
feet. Big Ben is tolling the hour with all the 
power of his thirteen tons. 

Farther on is Margaret's Church, where are 
buried Raleigh, Caxton, and the mother of Oliver 
Cromwell. Marshall Field of Chicago was mar- 
ried there. 

We turn in at the gate of St. James Park and 
look down Bird Cage Walk, practically deserted. 



22 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Horse Guards' Parade is dozing away the early 
hours. A royal trumpeter rides up and down on 
a prancing steed. He seems rather pleased to 
be photographed. 

Near by is the house given to Earl Roberts by 
a grateful nation. On the right is Carleton Ter- 
race, where live many Americans who have the 
money and like the g^me. 

The flag is flying over Marlborough House, in- 
dicating that George V is in residence there. The 
queen-mother is at Buckingham Palace at the 
other end of the park. 

Clarence House is the residence of the King's 
uncle, the Duke of Connaught. A sentinel stands 
in front of it, showing that it is the abode of roy- 
alty. 

Either as a courtesy or a precaution, England 
has placed a sentry in front of Whitelaw Reid's 
residence, Dorchester House, while Mr. Roose- 
velt is there. 

Buckingham Palace is black with age. It could 
not be sootier in appearance if it had stood on the 
lake front in Chicago for a month. The bay win- 
dow on the north side marks the room where Ed- 
ward VII died. Memorial statues to Queen Vic- 
toria adorn the east front of the palace. They 
are not completed, and already England mourns 
the passing of another monarch. 

Belgravia is one of London's most aristocratic 



London Sights 23 

sections. It contains the homes of wealth and no- 
bility. Most of the dukes of the family story 
paper live in Belgravia. 

Wellington's House is near the entrance to 
Hyde Park, through which we drive on Rotten 
Row. Here we find the real beauty of an Eng- 
lish June day. The hawthorn, the May tree and 
the chestnut are in bloom, and the landscape is a 
shifting tremulous mosaic of white, pink and 
green. The air is heavy with sweet odors. The 
equestrian path, parallel with the Row, has a 
large number of ladies and gentlemen cantering 
their horses on the soft ground. Many of the 
ladies are astride and some are in habits which 
hardly reach their knees, a sort of habit that is 
easily formed, judging from the simplicity of its 
lines. 

On one side of Hyde Park are the barracks 
and quarters of the Horse Guards Blue and the 
Ancient and Honorable Artillery, some of whose 
members came over to Boston a century and more 
ago and formed a similar organization. 

You could accompany us all over London in 
this way and share our sight-seeing and our 
fatigue at the repetition of famous names and 
events. We will spare you. 

We had an amusing experience at the Albert 
Memorial. . Londoners are fond of poking fun at 
this bit of architecture, but there is really much 



24 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

beautiful sculpture in the structure, possibly too 
much for the fastidious. 

B. photographed it from the street and was get- 
ting ready to take some nearer views showing 
certain groups, particularly the one symbolizing 
America. We were unfolding the tripod when 
a policeman stepped up, politely touched his hel- 
met and asked if we had a permit. We had none, 
and he informed us that we could use the camera, 
but not the tripod. We thanked him, rested the 
camera on a ledge, and took a picture. Another 
bobby strolled along and told us we could not 
use a camera with or without a tripod. As we 
had taken all that we wanted, we did not argue 
the matter, but meekly withdrew. 

We rather admired the stern impartiality of 
British law enforcement, and were not a little 
surprised when a man with a long beard detached 
himself from a conversation with officer number 
one and came over to us and said he had a permit 
but no camera, and we would be welcome to the 
use of his permit. We thanked him and de- 
clined, but it was evident that he made a regular 
business of loaning his permit to uninformed 
photographers, expecting a tip, of course, and the 
inflexible arms of the law relaxed a bit for this 
indirect consideration. 

Our driver pointed out a statue of a man whom 
he called A. Chills, the pronunciation doubtless 



London Sights 25 

being suggested by his unclad condition and the 
inclement weather. 

We emerged into Mayfair, where we were 
surrounded by wealth. Money was very close. 
Rothschilds were thicker than Hennessys in 
Archey Road. Whitelaw Reid lives in Mayfair. 
The rental of Dorchester House is something 
enormous. It shows that while we may some- 
times be in danger of having a poor representa- 
tive in London, he can never be a poor man and 
reside in this district. 

Are you tired of fashionables? So are we. 

We will drive through Leicester Square, the 
center of London's theatrical world. On one side 
is the Alhambra, the birthplace of the English 
ballet. Many of the original nursemaids are 
tripping it this week, if we may judge from the 
pictures. Behind the bush in the Square cowers 
a statue of Shakespeare, very inconspicuous and 
seemingly desirous of withdrawing from his 
present associations. 

Bow Street instantly suggests, to the reader of 
thrills, its famous police station and the Bow 
Street officer who always claps the handcuffs on 
the captured criminal, unless a Scotland Yard 
detective beats him to it. 

Drury Lane is where Garrick, Kean and Mrs. 
Siddons acted so well in the past and Nell Gwynn 
acted so badly. Poor Nell! the forerunner of 



26 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the modern chorus girl, who has never relaxed 
her grip on London aristocracy. 

John Forster's house is at 58 Lincoln's Inn 
Fields. This was the home of Mr. Tulkinghorn 
in Bleak House, and his shade haunts it as per- 
sistently as do the memories of its more sub- 
stantial tenants. Here Dickens came from 
abroad to read the manuscript of The Chimes 
to his delighted circle of friends. Tennyson 
once lived here, as well as Nell Gwynn, who 
seems to have been everywhere in this neighbor- 
hood, except to church. 

In The Temple we dodged around among be- 
wigged barristers and judges, all busy at some 
of the twenty courts that were in session. We 
stopped for a moment in one court room where 
the powdered wigs and serious demeanor of 
attorneys and judge led us to believe that high 
treason must be the charge against the prisoner. 
We left as soon as we discovered that it was a 
damage suit wherein the value of a skating rink 
was the question in litigation. We stayed long 
enough to hear the lawyers try to confuse the 
witnesses and succeed, and the judge try to get 
funny and fail, creating great rivalry between 
opposing counsel in the matter of laughter. The 
nature of the thatch does not affect the contents 
of the attic to any great extent. Lawyers are 
lawyers,the world over. 



London Sights 'ly 

In Middle Temple we stood on the boards 
where Shakespeare once played "Twelfth Night," 
by command of Queen Elizabeth. On the wall 
hangs a picture of Charles I by Van Dyke. 
Beneath the picture is an unusual bust of 
Edward VII before he wore a beard. 

The fine old carved oak gallery was the gift of 
Elizabeth. She was very fond of the students 
and ate here frequently and always on the house. 

In front of the stage is a table on which Mary's 
death warrant was signed. We make the state- 
ment boldly, notwithstanding the fact that it is 
questioned by some. The table is big enough 
and old enough for the purpose, and if we only 
accepted undisputed statements, traveling abroad 
would be a stupid matter. 

The Middle Temple was founded by Knights 
Templar. Much of their armor adorns the 
walls. There are panels bearing the names of 
famous graduates. Some crossed the seas and 
became "rebels" and afterwards "patriots" in 
the United States — because they won. Some 
signers of the roll of the Middle Temple after- 
wards signed the Declaration of Independence. 
Peyton Randolph's name appears both in the 
Middle Temple and on the roster of the first 
congress of the United States. 

Within the courtyard are the parched pipes of 
the fountain where Ruth Pinch met Tom, but it 



28 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

would take the genius of a Dickens to invest the 
neglected spot with the tinge of romance today. 
Near the fountain is Garden Court, where were 
plucked the red and white roses at the beginning 
of the Wars of the Roses. 

Plantagenet and Warwick started their row in 
the Middle Temple and adjourned to the garden 
to finish it. 

The Middle Temple lists among its students, 
Burke, Sheridan, Pym and Congreve. The Inner 
Temple numbers among its graduates Coke, 
Beaumont, Littleton and Selden. 

Some of the lawyers are carrying blue bags 
and some red ones. The latter are gifts from the 
King's Counsel and confer some distinction. The 
blue ones are simply receptacles bought by their 
owners. 

The Knights Templar Church was founded 
in 1 184. Within its walls are many effigies. 
Their legs are crossed in various ways to show 
how many times they have been to Jerusalem. 
The leg is drawn up a notch for each trip. Those 
who have been once, cross at the ankles. Two 
trips are indicated by crossing between the ankle 
and the knee. If the knight went three times he 
crosses above the knee. Four visits would cripple 
any one not a contortionist or a ballet dancer. 
His ari^ior would not stand it. 

Sir Geoflfrey Magnaville had been to Jerusalem, 



London Sights 29 



and his legs prove it. Nevertheless he was ex- 
communicated for his sins. He was doomed to 
be buried in unsanctified ground. Such was his 
lot. Then they opened his will and found he had 
left a large sum of money to the church. There 
must be a flaw in the indictment. They checked 
back the records and by marking down the price 
of each crime, Geoffrey paid out a hundred cents 
on the dollar. He was morally solvent. They 
buried him in the church. 

But they took precautions even then. There 
might be a mistake in the figures. So he was 
enclosed in the hide of an animal, probably a 
goat, and molten lead was poured about him. 
Now he is in sanctified ground, unless it was 
unsanctified when Henry VHI took his letter out 
of the church, but he will have an awful time at 
the resurrection. Personally, I do not think he 
was treated right. After taking his money they 
should not have tied weights to him. Instead of 
being sculptured with his legs crossed, he should 
be represented with one of them longer than the 
other. 

A quaint group of heads, carved in stone, rep- 
resents people in purgatory. They are all hard 
faces. Satan is whispering to one, and the mes- 
sage does not seem to please the recipient. 

The organ was selected by Jeffreys, the bloody 
judge. That throws a new light on Jeffreys' 



30 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

character. You never can tell how a man's whole 
future is influenced by the most trivial incident. 
Who knows but Jeffreys was a gay, light-hearted 
young man when he was put on that music com- 
mittee and that a naturally serene disposition was 
soured by the experience ? 

The Lamb of the Golden Fleece is the ever 
present symbol of the Middle Temple. The 
winged horse is everywhere to be seen in the 
Inner Temple. That winged horse is a joke on 
the proof-reader. The symbol was once a horse 
with two riders, showing the poverty of the 
Knights. Time and bad weather dimmed the 
escutcheon until someone in renewing it thought 
the horse had wings and so painted it that way. 

The Outer Temple does not seem to have any 
especial symbol. 

Within the grounds is buried Oliver Goldsmith, 
poor, happy-go-lucky Nolly, who could not be- 
lieve his luck when "She Stoops to Conquer" 
conquered London. His epitaph is a model of 
brevity and truthfulness. "Here lies Oliver Gold- 
smith." Oliver may, but the inscription does not. 
It is a poor place in which to lie, surrounded by 
twenty courts of law, swarming with attorneys, 
barristers and counselors. There is entirely too 
much competition. 

We come blinking out into the daylight again 
and- resume our drive. Henry VIII once palaced 



London Sights 31 



opposite 17 Fleet Street. Samuel Johnson was a 
regular attendant at St. Clement Dane's, but not 
so regular as at The Old Cheshire Cheese. 
St. Dunstan's was Izaak Walton's church. A 
plate in the wall announces the fact. 

"He angled for souls on Sunday," said the 
guide. 

The Old Bailey has disappeared, but its whip- 
ping post is exhibited in Guild Hall. Possibly it 
suggested the theme for Mr. Roosevelt's speech. 

At St. Sepulchre's Church John Rolfe married 
Pocahontas, who, according to our guide, was an 
Indian "Chieftainess." 

Off Newgate Street in Panier Alley is a queer 
little bas-relief. The Naked Boy of Panier Alley. 
It marks the highest spot in London, except 
Claridge's or the Savoy bar. 

The inscription reads : 

"When ye have sought the city round 
Yet still this is the highest ground." 

A little farther on is one of the few remaining 
public pumps of London. It is near St. Paul's 
churchyard. 

Bow Bells Church is the one whose chimes 
recalled Dick Whittington to be thrice Lord 
Mayor. Anyone born within the sound of Bow- 
Bells is a cockney. 

The Lord Mayor is elected annually and in- 
stalled November ninth. The term "lord" is 



32 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Anglo-Saxon, and means the one who procures 
the bread — the master. "Lady" is the one who 
serves it — the servant. The ladies of London 
have "given notice" and their lords will have to 
modify some of their Anglo-Saxon ideas. 

There is very little traditional reverence for 
woman in England. Assaults upon a mother by 
a son are frequently tried in London police courts. 
You seldom hear of this crime in France, and in 
the United States it is practically unknown. 

The grasshopper perched on the spire of the 
Royal Exchange has a curious history. It was 
not put up there by some grateful wheat market 
bull. It is the family crest of the Greshams. 
The story runs that the founder of the family, 
when an infant, was left in a field by his mother. 
The noise of a grasshopper attracted attention 
to the spot, and the baby was taken home and 
adopted by some good people. He grew up, 
became very wealthy, was knighted, and chose 
a grasshopper for his crest. When he founded 
the Royal Exchange he placed the symbol on its 
highest spire. 

London Bridge looks very much as it did when 
Rose Maylie met Nance under its dark arches. 
The old steps leading down into the gloom are 
pointed out as impressively as though Oliver 
Twist was as much a reality as Oliver Cromwell 
ever had been. 



London Sights 33 



Near by is the monument marking the starting 
point of the great London fire in 1666. 

The George Inn is a duplicate of the White 
Hart Inn, described in Pickwick Papers, where 
the susceptible Rachel and the false Jingle were 
overtaken. We lunch in a room similar to the 
dining room of The Old Cheshire Cheese, and 
sit in pews of the same sort. 

There is a party of Englishmen' at the next 
table. They are engaged in some game. Their 
talk grows louder. They seem to be gambling. 
My curiosity can no longer be restrained. I rise 
and look over the high back of our pew, osten- 
sibly for a menu. What do you suppose those 
wild bacchanalians are doing? They are playing 
dominoes! But this need not surprise you in a 
country where they have national championships 
in croquet and print pictures of the contestants 
and reports of the matches on the sporting page. 

The waiter asks us what we will have and says, 
"Sorry we are out of cold meat, sir. There's 
bean rawther a rush on the joint to-day, sir." 

"Why does he call this dear old place a joint?" 
expostulates B. 

It is explained that the "joint" is the cold roast 
beef whose wrecked hulk is on the center table. 

Chops are always safe in London, so we order 
chops. 

"Well done or underdone, sir?" 



34 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

We express our preference and are served 
promptly. 

After luncheon we go through the old house. 
The bedrooms open on a sort of gallery or 
veranda. The floors in all the rooms slope in 
various directions. Finding a collar button is 
simplified on such a floor. It would simply roll 
to a given point and stop. None of the doors 
will close and none of the windows will open. 

There is no heating apparatus anywhere on the 
second floor. We remark on this fact. 

"This room, sir, gets 'eat from the kitching 
stove whiles we're gettin' dinner, sir. The others 
does without. Yes, sir, it does get a bit cold in 
the winter time. Still we gets 'arf a crown a 
night for the rooms, sir." 

Devotees of Dickens should visit The George 
in summer or take a plentiful supply of hot-water 
bags with them. 

The inn yard is now used by a railroad for 
storing freight. 

Not far away is the site of the Tabard Inn, 
whence started the Pilgrims to Canterbury. The 
inn has long since disappeared. 

Nothing remains of Marshalsea Prison but one 
wall, which is incorporated in the factory build- 
ing of Harding & Son. Across the way is the 
Church of St. George the Martyr, on whose 
vestry steps Little Dorrit was found. 



London Sights 35 



Within this church those shadowy figures of 
reaUty, George EUot, DisraeU and Asquith were 
married. Will they live in memory as long as 
Little Dorrit? 

We questioned the statement that Disraeli was 
married there, but were assured that while he was 
a Hebrew racially, he was a Christian politically. 

In 1886 an American was married here. The 
register gives his occupation as "Ranchman" and 
his name "Theodore Roosevelt." He is in London 
this week rounding up other people's cattle. 

A walk down Lant Street, where the boy 
Dickens had a room while his father was in the 
Marshalsea, fails to locate the house. No one 
knows anything about it. One of a bunch of old 
cronies who would have delighted Dickens, 
thinks it was on the "Left 'and soide near by the 
school. The 'ouse is torn down, sir." 

So much greater are the creatures than the 
creator that London teems with spots immor- 
talized by the folk of Charles Dickens' fancy, 
while the habitations of his obscure youth are 
unmarked and unknown. 

Layton's Grove is a shabby cul-de-sac whose 
romantic name emphasizes its present poverty. 
A group of unkempt women and their picturesque 
progeny catch the eye of B., who neither respects 
royalty nor fears poverty and ignorance when 
armed with a camera. 



36 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

"Oh, I must have this," and, hardly waiting for 
the horse to stop, she dashes into the "Grove." 
A lot of slatternly women and half-clad children 
start up at her approach. 

"Not me, miss," protests the victim, making 
dabs at her hair and hurriedly adjusting the baby 
on her arm. Too late. The picture is taken amid 
the jeers of hen scoffing but envious neighbors. 

"Look 'ow yer hapron's 'anging down," cries 
one woman, as though that were her most promi- 
nent violation of the law of correct dress. 

White Hart Inn is restored, and in it The Sam 
Weller Club meets at stated intervals to ponder 
the wisdom of that philosopher. 

In St. Savior's Church we encounter an irre-- 
pressible old verger. At our first question he 
scurries to cover and emerges in full regimentals. 
Not until then does he open his mouth. Being 
properly robed, he makes up for lost time by 
telling us more than we have time to listen to. 
He is in perfect agony as we flit from tomb to 
tomb and positively refuse to hear him recite the 
poetic epitaphs. 

John Harvard was baptized in this church, and 
from the font has grown a tentacle which has 
clung to Harvard University ever since. The 
church has been helped by generous donations 
from alumni at various times. 

St. Swithin was its founder. He is buried in 




THE GEORGE INN 



London Sights 37 



Winchester, and you will hear of the post-mortem 
row he made about it when we reach that town. 

London is too crowded with incidents to admit 
of its telling at this point, while Winchester prob- 
ably will need it. 

John Gower's tomb is in St. Savior's. He was 
the father of English poetry, Chaucer having 
been his pupil. From a rather feeble start his 
descendants are now as sands of the sea. 

A slab in the floor marks the last resting place 
of Edmond Shakespeare. William paid for this, 
as for a good many of his brother's previous 
resting places, from money taken in at the box 
office of the Globe Theater, which was about 
three hundred yards from the church. 

By his side he Fletcher (1625) and Massinger 
(1639). It is small wonder that the old verger 
is proud of his exhibits. 

Bunhill Fields Burying Ground is peopled 
with a different set. There are i20,ooci non- 
conformists buried there. Watts is there, and 
Daniel Defoe. The monument of the latter im- 
mortalizes the sculptor by printing his own name 
and address as deeply as the virtues of the 
deceased. 

The inscription on the tomb of Dame Mary 
Page has been r jpied by thousands. We struggle 
in vain to be unique and omit it. Here it is : 



38 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

"Here lyes Dame Mary Page, Relict of Sir 

Gregory Page In 67 months she was 

tap'd 66 times. Had taken away 240 gallons of 
water without ever repining at her case or ever 
fearing the operation." 

John Bunyan ended his progress here in 1688. 
Several Cromwells are buried in this crowded 
cemetery. The tombstone of Mrs. Susanna 
Wesley records the fact that she was the mother 
of John and Charles and "seventeen others." 
If there is a depth of obscurity beyond being one 
of "seventeen others" on a tombstone, a mortuary 
also-ran, we have never heard of it. The epitaph 
continues : 

"In sure and certain hope to rise and claim 
her Mansion in the skies, a Christian here her 
flesh laid down, The Cross exchanging for a 
Crown." 

On the opposite side of the street are Wesley's 
house, chapel and grave. The church is severely 
plain. The walls are as they were in Wesley's 
day, but the new pillars and pews are more ornate 
than were the old ones. It is Wesley's church, 
but with a new lining. How much of the real 
inwardness of Wesley's religion has been altered 
in restoration? 

Milton's house is passed on our drive to St. 
Giles Church, where he is buried. 

Charter House was once a school for boys. 



London Sights 39 



Now it is filled with old boys, pensioners in a 
way, but not paupers by any means. Among its 
pupils were numbered Addison, John Wesley, 
Roger Williams and Thackeray. The latter must 
have loved the place, for to it he consigned old 
Colonel Newcome in his last days. Under these 
shade trees the old hero answered the last call, 
"Adsum." 

Sixty-five venerable gentlemen occupy the 
house and grounds. They look very placid as 
they walk about the gravel paths or sit on the 
benches. 

Within the house a tablet on the wall com- 
memorates in Latin the virtues of a former 
teacher, Nicholas Mann. It concludes by stating 
that "he formerly dusted the boys' jackets and 
now he has gone to dust himself." 

The window arches in the cloister are not alike. 
This fact slumbered through the centuries, but 
was pointed out last week by a visitor. All of the 
arches but one have twelve panes of glass each. 
That one has ten panes. A similar irregularity 
occurs in the Doge's Palace in Venice. There 
is a jog in the alignment of the windows which 
not one visitor in a thousand observes. 

In the reception room of Charter House, James 
I knighted fifty men at one thousand pounds 
each. That is another example of the increased 



40 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

cost of living. It costs fifty to a hundred times 
as much now and is paid for indirectly. 

The King is governor of Charter House, not 
ex oiHcio but by election. George V will be the 
fourteenth royal governor. The guide was care- 
ful to emphasize the fact that he could not be 
elected until after his coronation. One cannot be 
too careful in regard to these matters. Still, as 
there are no other candidates, it is safe to assume 
that some time within the next year George V will 
add to his string of titles that of Governor of 
Charter House. 

In the library is Cotton Mather's "History of 
Witches," one of the best sellers in 1603 but very 
seldom read now. Its present perfect state of 
preservation shows how highly it is valued and 
how rarely it is read. 

The steps into the library are of solid oak tim- 
ber, cut into colossal slabs. The entrance gate to 
the grounds is 450 years old. 

We return to our hotel past Smithfield, the 
scene of Watt Tyler's furious but futile insurrec- 
tion, and realize how much we might see in Lon- 
don if we only had another day. 



Windsor 41 



III 

Windsor 



rSHjE buy third-class tickets to Windsor. We 
i f fl traveled third class all through England 
B^m and Scotland and as far into Ireland as 
we could stand it. The third-class 
coaches in Ireland are not upholstered and would 
be still less desirable if they were. 

At the crowded railway station a policeman 
stepped up to a man whose umbrella was sticking 
out at right angles and touched him gently on the ^ 
shoulder, at the same time pointing to the offend- 
ing article. The man instantly changed it to a 
position less dangerous to the innocent bystander. 
It was an example of the common-sense method 
of handling such matters in London. 

The King's death put all of England into '* 
mourning, or at least into black. Somber colors 
rule everywhere in London. The shop windows ,,, 
display nothing in lighter shades, and dyeing, es- 
tablishments are working, overtime to supply the 
needs of a dyeing nation. 

One glove salesman sadly pointed to a pile of 



42 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

gray and tan gloves which had been rendered 
temporarily unsalable and said that a South 
American buyer had picked them up at a bar- 
gain. 

The railroad to Windsor passes within two 
miles of Stoke Pogis, the scene of Gray's Elegy. 
We do not stop, as we are satisfied there is noth- 
ing prettier in the old churchyard than the poem 
itself. 

The poet is buried in the shadow of the ivy- 
mantled^ tower. Beside him lies his wife, whose 
epitaph was written by Gray. He spoke of her 
as the mother of several children, "only one of 
whom had the misfortune to survive her." 

Gray was no name for such a man. His name 
should have been Black to suit such gloomy 
views. 

The town of Windsor is just a neat little fringe 
on the border of Windsor Castle and its thirteen- 
thousand-acre park. 

The castle was started by William the Con- 
queror, and was later extended by the first and 
second Henrys. Even prior to the Conquest the 
site was the residence of Saxon kings. 

Henry VHI is buried here and so are Lady 
Jane Grey and Charles I. The latest royal tenant 
of the chapel tombs is Edward VH. Around the 
edifice are many mourning wreaths whose leaves 
have not yet withered. Huge floral pieces lean 




THE MONUMENT 



Windsor 43 

against its walls. One bears an inscription "From 
the Prince of Wales' own Norfolk Artillery." 
The others are anonymous. 

George III is one of Windsor's illustrious dead. 
He was a much misunderstood monarch. We all 
now recognize him as a deeply disguised blessing 
to humanity. But for his monomania on the sub- 
ject of prerogative there might never have been a 
United States of America or a New York custom 
house. He was kind and gentle in his domestic 
affairs and personal friendships. That sounds 
like defending a prisoner on the grounds that he 
"was good to his mother," but he has another 
defense not unusual in criminal trials. George 
in was insane. 

His first mental breakdown was in 1765. From 
this he recovered. He felt the loss of the Ameri- 
can colonies so keenly that in 1788 he declared he 
was going mad. He had suicidal mania and had 
to be guarded closely. His second recovery was 
the cause of great national celebration and rejoic- 
ing. 

He was the father of fifteen children. In 1810 
his favorite daughter, Amelia, died. Again he lost 
his mind. In 18 12 he became blind and in 1820 
died. These facts are not given in all of the his- 
tories studied in America and they do much to 
soften the rancor against a suffering old man, 



44 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

largely the dupe of ambitious advisers. Surely 
he was punished for his own and others' sins. 

We wander around under trees a thousand 
years old and trail along in the shadow of an 
English family in deep mourning. They boarded 
our train at a village called Slough. It is pro- 
nounced "slow," and no doubt it is. The pretty 
little boy is in knickers and his chubby little 
brown legs are a model of British sturdiness. He 
carries a diminutive cane. Children are put into 
canes young in England. 

Slough was the home of the Herschels, Sir 
William and Sir John. Their observatory was 
the source of many famous astronomical discov- 
eries and they died in time to avoid being mixed 
up in any wild guesses on Halley's comet. 

Sentinels in blue trousers and red coats, sur- 
mounted by huge bearskin shakos, are traveling 
beats all around the grounds. Overhead the cop- 
per beeches seem to have put forth their somber 
foliage in larger quantity than usual, in keeping 
with the sad surroundings. 

The Royal Apartments are open to visitors at 
a shilling each, children half price. You provide 
yourself with the exact change before approach- 
ing the turnstile. The children pass through a 
six-penny gate. 

A person is in charge of the table where you 
procure change and there is an attendant at each 



Windsor 45 

turnstile. The ability to make three jobs grow 
where only one is necessary is a qualification of 
royalty. The three divide one salary between 
them. 

Over the change table is spread a cover bear- 
ing the initials V. R. They change everything at 
that table but the cloth. 

The tourists are first led into the Rubens room. 
It is filled with them, on the walls and walking 
about. The exhibit of chased armor is the finest 
in the world. Some of it was chased with the 
owners in it. 

In the Guest Chamber hangs a still-life painting 
by Heinz. There were at least fifty-seven varie- 
ties of objects grouped in the picture. 

In the King's Closet is what the catalogue de- 
scribes as "St. Peter Released from Prison by 
Steenwyck," which should set at rest any doubts 
as to the identity of St. Peter's outside assistant 
in that celebrated case. 

In the Audience Chamber are tapestried chairs 
everywhere, but not a place to sit. Windsor is a 
sort of storehouse for old furniture from Buck- 
ingham and other palaces. There are beautiful 
tiger skins on the floor. Some exquisite designs 
are wrought out in tiger and panther skins. 

A chair is shown that was carved from an 
almond tree that grew on the Field of Waterloo. 



46 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

-» " 

There is nothing on exhibition carved from the 
cherry tree that grew at Mt. Vernon. 

Charles I's armorer was not such a flatterer as 
were his portrait painters. His armor shows him 
to be not so tall as he was painted. 

In St. George's Hall the ceiling is adorned with 
portraits of Knights of the Garter from the reigii 
of James I, including that of George IV. 

The Grand Reception Room is furnished in 
Louis XV style with the slender legs and gilty 
appearance which characterized the furniture of 
that period. 

The Throne Room is trimmed in blue. This is 
the installation room for the Knights of the Gar- 
ter. Adjoining is the anteroom. In the cruder 
days of James I the knights anted and were in- 
stalled in the same room. See Charter House, 
ante. There is a bust of Wilhelm of Germany in 
the Throne Room. 

The Waterloo Chamber has a magnificent ban- 
quet table, one hundred and fifty feet long. The 
carpet is in one piece and weighs two tons. 
Sousa's band played in this room once. Statis- 
ticians have figured that if he had had a carpet- 
beater instead of a baton he could have beaten 
that carpet while the band played three marches. 

Edward III was born in the building surround- 
ing Dean's Cloister, and Anne Boleyn's window 
opened out on the small quadrangle. The oak 



Windsor 47 

supports of the cloister roof are five hundred 
years old. 

Our guide's statements have the ring of truth- 
fulness. Judging from his general decrepitude, 
he was an eye-witness of most of the events 
which he describes. 

Wearied with walking, we seek refreshment. 
The George is a neat little lunch room opposite 
the Henry VIII gate. You will enjoy its quaint 
arrangements if you are not too corpulent to 
ascend its stairway to the dining room. The 
building is about eight feet wide. As we sat at 
its window waiting for luncheon we peopled the 
streets in front of us with prominent figures in 
English history, and no doubt mixed our dates 
terribly. 

Eton school is five minutes' drive from Wind- 
sor Palace. The towns are separated by the 
Thames and joined by a bridge. On the streets 
of Eton you encounter many little chaps from 
the school. Some of them have on silk hats and 
the majority wear bob-tailed jackets. The 
Thames here is much sweeter and prettier than 
it is after it gets a taste of metropolitan life. 

The quadrangle is like velvet and the little lads 
complete a pretty picture. Most of them wear 
wide white collars, long trousers and the regula- 
tion Eton jacket, but a few are in knickers, with 
here and there a sailor's blouse. 



48 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Between Windsor and London, every vacant 
field is utilized as cricket grounds. Where at 
home a crowd of boys would be running around 
a baseball diamond, in England they play cricket. 
Every player is in white. An Englishman will 
not attend to any of the affairs of life unless in 
proper regalia. Whether it is a cricketer a-crick- 
eting or a verger a-verging, each must have his 
uniform on. 

Imagine a London fireman. He has retired, 
leaving his garments in the next room. He is 
aroused by the smell of smoke. The partition 
between the two rooms is ablaze, A pitcher of 
water is at his elbow, but his uniform and helmet 
are on the other side of the flames. He cannot 
get to them through the fire. He cannot ex- 
tinguish the fire while in undress costume. Con- 
duct problem : What should he do ? He perishes 
beside the water pitcher, a martyr to precedent. 

In line with that, the guide at Windsor said 
that Anne Boleyn was beheaded standing up and 
said that was her "privilege" as a member of the 
royal family. Of all kingly prerogatives that 
would be the last one I would choose. But when 
you come to think of it, that was the last one 
Anne chose. 

The man or the nation that loves flowers is pos- 
sessed of a good streak somewhere. The Eng- 
lish adore them. Nature responds to this adora- 



Windsor 49 

tion by sprinkling the vacant spaces with blooms 
of every shade. Rhododendrons grow wild in 
the country. Hillsides are red with valerian or 
purple with the rich hues of the foxglove. 

The least pretentious restaurants decorate their 
tables with daisies and buttercups. The large 
stores in London fill their second floor ledges 
with window boxes running over with beautiful 
flowering plants. Flower venders are more 
numerous than newsboys, and for a penny you 
can decorate yourself with a bontonniere and be 
one of the majority. It is a splendid index to the 
national character, whose true charm often is hid 
beneath an impenetrable reserve. 



50 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



IV 

Winchester 



rrn E take a train to Winchester from Water- 
11 'J loo Station. London has 568 railroad 
BJLB depots, most of them suburban. The 
greater part of the down town traffic is 
handled from half a dozen terminals. 

The ride to Winchester takes a few minutes 
less than two hours. The price is printed on the 
ticket. If you can figure in pounds, shillings and 
pence there is no possibility of error. Third class 
:Costs a trifle more than half of first class. 

When buying a railroad ticket be sure to tell 
the booking agent (ticket seller) your destination 
and class desired and add "single" unless you 
wish a return ticket. 

A company of Highlanders shares our train for 
a part of the way. One of them with a taste 
for art has tattoo designs where his breeks ought 
to be. Another who looks as though he had en- 
countered a barb-wire fence is illustrated with 
cuts. 

London has miles of smoky, yellow suburbs 



Windsor 51 

with houses of deadly similarity. From two to 
six pipes protrude from each chimney. Even 
in the more remote and grassier regions houses 
stand in rows as if they had been run in molds, 
cut into proper lengths and carefully placed on 
the edge of the sidewalk. 

The fields are bright with wild flowers, with 
here and there a patch of mustard in bloom. The 
use of mustard is almost universal in England. 

Our Highlanders disembark at Woking, which 
town, in addition to a Highland regiment with 
pipers, has a lunatic asylum, and a two-thousand- 
acre cemetery — a study in cause and effect. 

Bisley Common has been the meeting place of 
the National Rifle Association since 1889. A 
troop of cavalry is encamped there with funny 
little tents, above which tower big brown horses. 

At Tarnborough there is little to see, but much 
to learn of the vanity of human ambition. Near 
the town the aged Empress Eugenie lives and 
mourns her dead. Her husband and son lie in a 
small chapel built under her direction near her 
home. 

Charles Kingsley lived at Eversley for thirty- 
five years. 

Old Basing looks peaceful enough now. It has 
had sufficient time to settle down and remove the 
marks of battle since the Saxons and Danes 
fought here in 871. Basing House is a scarcely 



52 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

distinguishable ruin. It held out against the Par- 
liamentarians for four years. Finally in 1645 
Cromwell gave the matter his personal attention, 
and when he finished, the grand old hall looked 
like a stone quarry. 

Basingstoke has a faultlessly neat depot buried 
in tin advertising signs. Do not waste your time 
and strain your eyes trying to learn the name of 
an English town by looking for it on a sign- 
board. It is there, but you will be hopelessly con- 
fused and utterly unable to choose between Col- 
man's Mustard and Lipton's Tea. Look for the 
station lamps. Unless dimmed by smoke or 
rubbed off by too zealous cleaners, you will find 
the name of the town pasted on the glass. 

England is a land of good roads, but the coun- 
try around Winchester is not as faultlessly paved 
as rural France. It is marked up into small, neat 
farms by well-trimmed hedges. Everywhere are 
seen evidences of careful cultivation. Here and 
there a thatched roof shows through a clump of 
trees, completing the prettiest pastoral picture in 
the world. 

Winchester is a thriving town of twenty-one 
thousand inhabitants. Its star attraction is its 
cathedral, dedicated to St. Paul, late Saul, and 
St. Peter, late Simon, and also the Trinity. 
Cathedrals set the fashion followed later by needy 
writers in the sixteenth century, of making dedi- 




INTERIOR OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL 



Windsor 53 

cations to some higher power, feeling that a lit- 
tle merit would be no worse for the assistance of 
a big pull. From this point of view, Winchester 
Cathedral is well represented on the Directory of 
the Universe, and had reason for confidence in its 
stability. Notwithstanding its strong moral sup- 
port, the east end, physically speaking, is in a 
precarious condition and settling. The arches in 
that part of the building are badly out of plumb. 
The foundations are laid in the running water of 
a subterranean river and are being repaired by a 
diver, but the work progresses slowly and is very 
expensive. As the river runs almost under the 
high altar, they might sell the property to the 
Baptists. Our verger hinted that a donation from 
some American millionaire would be acceptable, 
but what avail would it be to carve your name in 
enduring stone so far underground and out of 
the sight of men ? 

St. Swithin is buried in this cathedral, and that 
is the cause of all the trouble. 

There is probably no subject upon which the 
general public is less informed than the post- 
mortem performances of St. Swithin. That 
makes it desirable to insert a few facts right here 
— and also safe. 

When the cathedral was built in 980 the bones 
of the Saint were transferred to the interior. St. 
Swithin was the tutor of Alfred the Great and 



54 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

was in the habit of having his own way — was 
quite spoiled, in fact. For some reason or other 
he objected to the removal and from on high tried 
to thwart the scheme by sending a forty days' 
rain. Either he ran out of water or concluded 
to stay in out of the wet, for he turned off the 
tap at the end of forty days and the bones re- 
mained within the Cathedral. 

He is now the pluvial saint of England. If it 
rains on St. Swithin's Day, it rains for forty 
days thereafter. If it does not rain on St. 
Swithin's Day (but it always does), it rains for 
forty days anyhow. You cannot beat that system. 

So in exchange for the gratification of keeping 
the bones of a poor old gentleman in uncongenial 
surroundings, the British Isles have been given 
the dampest climate on earth. 

The Cathedral was rebuilt in 1079-93 ^y Bishop 
Walkelyn, who was the lumber king of his time. 
He cut all of Hempage Wood in four days by 
royal grant, and this angered William the Con- 
queror very much. The church has the largest 
nave in England. William thought it was built 
by the largest one. 

William Rufus, son of the Conqueror, was the 
last king buried here ( 1 100) . Canute's bones are 
also properly labeled and pigeon-holed in Win- 
chester Cathedral. You remember Canute. He 
was the man for whom the tide would not turn. 



Windsor 55 

Our search for the -final resting place of Izaak 
Walton terminated here. The verger mentioned 
the fact that Walton was an officer of St. Dun- 
stan's Church in London. We interrupted him 
by saying "Fished for souls on Sunday" and he 
seemed quite disappointed. It was wrong, and 
thoughtless and we will not do it again. We 
grow careless and selfish on our vacation and for- 
get how few are the joys of these good people 
past whom the world is whirling. Hereafter we 
will listen to the ancient jest, however oft re- 
peated, and laugh merrily. 

The first view of the Cathedral is disappoint- 
ing. The tower is very much truncated. Its west 
windows are massive but somber. Its chief charm 
is due to the fact that it is rich with relics of 
English political and ecclesiastical history. 

The chair in which Mary sat when she married 
Philip of Spain is in a small room. Royalty may 
stand to be beheaded or sit to be married. It is a 
complicated system. 

Mary's life with Philip was short but not hap- 
py. He sailed home the day after the wedding 
and they met no more. This entitles both to 
hearty congratulations. The only thing you can 
say for such a marriage is that it keeps four 
people from being made unhappy. 

The old doors in the vestry press are carved 
to resemble folded linen. The new window to 



56 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the Royal Rifles was dedicated, or opened, or 
whatever they do to a window, quite recently. 

One of the last acts of the present King, as 
Prince of Wales, was to preside on this occa- 
sion. 

Six oak chests contain the bones of Saxon 
kings packed together in a manner that is bound 
to cause confusion and argument on Resurrec- 
tion Day. You cannot be too careful about these 
things. St. Swithin was quite right in his objec- 
tions. 

Queen Emma is boxed up with Canute, but this 
is not the first time Emma has been in a box. 
She was charged with infidelity once and walked 
down the slander by parading over twelve hot 
plowshares in the nave of this church. Emma 
may have been innocent, but she was no tender- 
foot. 

The verger said, "There was a 'eathen temple 
'ere once, but it was converted." If they do not 
strengthen the eastern foundations it is in a fair 
way of being baptized. 

The bishops of Winchester are cjv ofHcio prel- 
ates of the Order of the Garter. You cannot 
realize how important this fact is unless you hear 
it stated by the verger. 

The Puritans took a hack at the mural decora- 
tions, but the beauty of the surrounding grounds 
was beyond their power permanently to deface. 



Winchester 57 



The trees are heavy with foUage and the haw- 
thorns redolent with bloom. Wild birds are sing- 
ing all about as we drive over to the old palace. 

Charles II planned to outdo Versailles at Win- 
chester, but completed only the central part of 
the structure prior to his death. 

King Arthur's Round Table is the principal 
exhibit. Its authenticity is questioned, but we 
follow our usual practice of believing all things 
and enduring all things. 

The table looks glaringly new, but that is the 
fault of Henry VIII, who re-decorated it in 1522, 
when he entertained Charles V. It hangs against 
the wall like a target. Its diameter is eighteen 
feet and it is divided into sections radiating from 
the center like the spokes of a wheel. Each sec- 
tion has at its wide end the name of a knight. Sir 
, Galahad sat at King Arthur's left hand. 

Raleigh was tried in this hall in 1603 and con- 
demned to death. He was beheaded fifteen years 
later. As an example of the law's delay, that 
holds the record. A modern lawyer could not 
have postponed sentence much longer than that. 

Domesday Book was compiled in Winchester 
in 1086. This book is the basis of all land titles 
in the British Isles and fixed the valuation for 
taxation purposes until 1689, when there was a 
revaluation ordered by William and Mary. 

Whether or not it is time for another readjust- 



58 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

ment is one of the issues agitating England at 
present. It is a question upon which an outsider 
enters with caution. After the assistance given 
England in handling her colonial affairs, she has 
no right to expect advice from America upon 
her domestic policy. 

You can obtain as many opinions as there are 
Englishmen interviewed. Each man is as em-r 
phatic and sincere as Americans are in their sev- 
eral attitudes on the tariff question. 

Some things seem to be basic and authentic. 
The land in England is owned by a very few 
people. Of the seventy-seven million acres in 
the two islands, fifty-two million belong to large 
owners, people with more than one thousand 
acres each. 

The Duke of Sutherland owns 1,358,000 acres. 
Twenty-eight dukes own four million acres, and 
so on down through marquises, earls, viscounts 
and barons. 

These land owners sit in the House of Lords 
or are represented there by relatives. The five 
hundred and twenty-five peers in the upper house ^ 
own fifteen million acres. They are staking their ■ 
legislative existence on the taxation question. 
Without criticism or comment, one knows where 
their interest lies. 

Domesday Book caused a wide diversion from 
Winchester. Let us return to the palace. One 




QUEEN 



MARYS CHAIR IN WINCHESTER 
CATHEDRAL 



Winchester 59 



of its curious features is an aperture in the end 
wall called "The Ear of the Castle." Henry III 
made a practice of eavesdropping when courtiers 
were assembled in the hall. The brickwork 
around the opening is modern, but the guide as- 
sures us that "the 'ole is the original 'ole." 

There is much else of interest in the town. 
Winchester is one of the oldest settlements in 
England. Vespasian conquered it in the first 
century of the Christian era. It has an interest- 
ing connection with the two most quoted, if not 
most read, books in our language. It was the home 
of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, whose son Arvira- 
gus was adopted by Claudius and became Carac- 
tacus. His daughter Claudia married Senator 
Pudens, and Paul was acquainted with both of 
them. See II Timothy, iv, 21. 

Winchester was the capital until the Normans 
removed it to London. William the Conqueror 
and Richard the Lion-Hearted were crowned 
here. Henry III was born in the old town and 
Henry IV was married here. It has been the 
center of many world-stirring events, but to-day 
it hardly makes a ripple in the stream of con- 
temporaneous affairs. 



6o Three Weeks in the British Isles 



m 



Salisbury 

HERE is a good restaurant at the Win- 
chester station. Sahsbury is an hour's 
ride away. Be sure you say "Solsbry," 
unless you want some one to ask, "And 
*ow is heverything in H'America, sir?" 

Change cars at Eastleigh. It requires increas- 
ing vigilance to keep track of the numerous 
changes of cars in England. The difficulties of 
a non-English speaking tourist must be con- 
siderable. 

Bradshaw, the authorized time table, is the 
despair of travelers. The railroad employees ven- 
ture no further than to guess at its meaning, and 
frequently the guess is wrong. 

Salisbury was once peopled by the Belgae, who 
came from Gaul and brought a good deal of it 
with them. They ousted the natives in the manner 
followed by stronger nations today. 

The Duke of Buckingham headed an insurgent 
movement against Richard III and was beheaded 
here in 1484. Addison was educated here. 



Salisbury 6i 

The local celebrity is John Fawcett. He was 
born in Salisbury in 1833. He lost his sight 
through an accident. He was elected to parlia- 
ment, where he was the author of many impor- 
tant postal reforms. He invented the "next 
collection" slide for post boxes, or "pillar posts," 
as they are called in England. 

The usual adjectives do not satisfy when 
applied to Salisbury Cathedral. It is graceful, 
delicate and chaste. The impression made by 
its single spire as it rises above the trees, over 
four hundred feet into the clear sky, is indescrib- 
able. Milan Cathedral seems ornate and over- 
decorated in comparison with this single needle- 
like spire, tremulous with beauty. 

Just why Charles Dickens makes Pecksniff's 
pupils draw the towers of Salisbury Cathedral is 
a mystery. Its spire once seen can never be 
forgotten. So exactly is it constructed that its 
tip end is only twenty-two inches out of per- 
pendicular, 

Tom Pinch used to play the organ here on 
summer afternoons. Since his day it has been 
replaced by a larger instrument. We regret that 
we cannot visit St. Thomas' parish church, where 
the old organ is installed, so real is the grip of 
dear, loving, lovable old Tom Pinch on our 
hearts. 

It is a long drive to Old Sarum and hardly 



62 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

worth the time of the mere tourist. If you have 
technical training and imagination sufficient to 
re-garrison the old Roman fort at the top of the 
hill, you will be paid for your trouble. The cathe- 
dral once stood here, but was removed to 
Salisbury in the thirteenth century. 

The drive takes you down Castle Street past 
a shabby little inn with the resounding name. The 
Rising Sun. Its sun appears to be setting. 

We are not sure of the name of the street. The 
driver's reply to our inquiry is indistinct. 

"How do you spell it ?" 

"It commences with a C, sir," he says, and 
refuses to commit himself further. 

Many drivers do not know the names of streets 
over which they drive daily, and some can neither 
read nor spell. 

The drive takes less time than we expected, so 
we return for another visit to the enchanting 
cathedral. It was built in forty years and has 
never been enlarged or made the beneficiary of 
any mediaeval conscience fund, so there is a 
homogeneity in its design not often seen in Eng- 
lish cathedrals. As a rule you can trace their 
growth through the centuries by patches of every 
school of architecture known. Each builder 
registers his preference or the prevailing mode 
of his day, and tears away enough of his 
predecessors' work to destroy its effect. 



Salisbury 63 

The Chapter House is the most attractive room 
in Salisbury Cathedral. Its roof is supported by 
a central fan column exquisitely designed. Its 
windows seem more beautiful in contrast with 
the uncolored glass of the main structure. 

Many tattered old banners hang in the nave, 
some of which visited America in 1814 and were 
fortunate to get back safely. 

The brass tablets over the graves were undis- 
turbed by Cromwell for some mysterious reason. 

A little diversion at this point may be of 
interest. It v/ill help to explain the significance 
of England's many cathedrals and the insignifi- 
cance of a few of the builders thereof. 

The Romans came to England in 55 B. C, but 
stayed only a year. They did not like the climate, 
or returned home for their umbrellas. Julius 
Csesar in his travel book speaks of the trip, but 
was not deeply impressed. In 43 A. D. Claudius 
sent over four legions. In 60, the Romans 
encountered the original suffragette, Boadicea, 
who gave them a hard fight but was finally 
conquered. 

The Saxons came in the fifth century. This 
was the first German invasion and England has 
never overcome the nervous apprehension of its 
recurrence. Many names ending in sex trace 
back to the Saxon occupation, such as Essex and 
Sussex. 



64 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

There was very Httle national feeling in Eng- 
land during the sixth and seventh centuries. She 
watched the Angles and Saxons fight each other 
in a "Go it, husband ; go it, bear," mental attitude. 

The country became Christian in the seventh 
century. The Danes made some trouble from 
789 to 793. They would sail up and down the 
coast in dinky little boats, land when no one was 
looking and wipe out a town. The foreigner who' 
visits the seashore resorts to-day finds conditions 
reversed. It is the invader who is relieved of his 
possessions. 

In 851 the Danes stayed all winter. They 
found that the winter was no worse than the 
summer and either was milder than at home, so 
they became permanent residents. 

Alfred the Great ran them out of the country 
in 871-900. 

The millennium was expected in 1000 and 
people ceased to build. Superstition and indo- 
lence joined hands and stopped progress for- 
awhile with the notion that the world would end. 

It did not, but the Danes returned and Canute 
was king from 1016 to 1035. The Battle of 
Hastings in 1066 gave England to the Conqueror 
and French supplanted Scandinavian in court 
circles. 

England really became English under Henry 
II, and has been growing more so ever since. 









.^ 








4 










*>» 
















i 
1 








jrW 








i 


i 


;<- 


MS^MMp^|^^*^'(» 




1 




1, 


■«*asi 


^^H 




fe- • .... 




iJB 



SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 



Salisbury 65 

The Conqueror built most of the cathedrals. At 
least his cathedrals are at the bottom of most of 
those that are standing to-day. 

Richard the Lion-Hearted was personally idol- 
ized but accomplished little for England. 

John, by blunders, bad luck and vacillation, 
did more for England and influenced her future 
to a greater extent than many abler rulers. 
Magna Charta was wrung from him, not by the 
insurgents, but by "the interests" of his day. 
The barons had no idea of the scope of their 
work and cared as little for the common people 
as did John. Had they known how to make a 
door to freedom large enough for them, but too 
small for the little fellows, they would have 
done it. Rogues fell out and honest men received 
a payment on account. 

Henry HI was the Gothic architecture king. 
Most of the surcharging and superimposing of 
pointed arches on semi-circular ones was done 
during his reign. At the same time mendicant 
friars originated and superimposed themselves 
on the producers of the community. 

Parliament was created by Edward I. A little 
later the House of Lancaster ruled for sixty-two 
years and was ousted by York. 

Like some other feuds, the Wars of the Roses 
were ended by matrimony, Henry VH being the 
bridegroom. Henry VIH, whose portrait shows 



66 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

him to have had the essential ugliness of the 
successful lady-killer, started in to exterminate 
the female population of England by marriage. 

He rebelled against Pope Clement for divorce 
reasons. There was more politics than religion 
in the attitude of Rome. Another and a younger 
wife might mean an heir to the throne in place 
of Mary. Really, to study sixteenth century his- 
tory makes modern politics seem almost decent. 
And what we know about Elizabeth — from 
people living right in her neighborhood, too — 
but this is a travel book. 

After Henry VIH had reformed the cathe- 
drals, Cromwell proceeded to protect England. 
He loved to smash pretty things. Stained glass 
windows were his pet aversion and carved wood 
or stone fairly made him rave. As for lead 
roofs and brass railings, he needed them for his 
projectiles. The cathedrals today show marks 
of his zeal, but gradually have been repaired and 
restored. 



Bath 67 



D 



VI 

Bath 

T takes about two hours to go to Bath. 
There is a change of cars at Westbury. 
The railroad passes through Wilton, 
where the carpets come from. 

At Westbury they lock the passengers in the 
compartments. Although the train is there for 
half an hour a guard unlocks the door every time 
a passenger wants to walk up and down the plat- 
form and locks it after he gets out. Partly 
because we are hungry and partly because we 
believe that the best way to insure the repeal 
of an unwise law is to enforce it, we make several 
trips to the refreshment room for fruit, sand- 
wiches and Banbury cakes. On each occasion 
the process is repeated of calling a guard, who 
unlocks the door and locks it carefully after us. 
When we get back, the key is again turned 
on us. 

"Why do you lock us in?" we ask. 

"We may shunt you about a bit," is his reply. 



68 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Despite the precautions our car is not moved 
until we pull out for Bath. 

There is one less excusable vandal than Oliver 
Cromwell. The latter was animated by fanatic 
zeal in his defacements, but what possible pallia- 
tion is there for the person who seeks to 
immortalize his idiocy by carving his initials in 
beautiful woodwork ? One prize imbecile actually 
cut letters deeply into an alabaster monument at 
Salisbury. It must have taken the lunatic an 
hour to do it. 

Bath has no cathedral. It has an abbey, but 
few of its visitors come here to visit the beautiful 
old church. The bathtub is the shrine at which 
all high class Britishers worship and the bath- 
tub attains its apotheosis at Bath. The Romans 
located the springs on their first visit to England 
and built baths. The waters are iron and saline 
and very hot. 

In 577 the Saxons captured the town. It was 
then known as Ace-mannes-ceaster, city (or 
camp) of invalids. 

Beau Nash took it early in the eighteenth cen- 
tury and he kept it for the rest of his life — or it 
kept him. He made it the French Lick of Eng- 
land. Instead of bringing him before the grand 
jury, the citizens of Bath supported him in fine 
style during his life and built him a monument 
when he died. 



Bath 69 

John Wood, the architect, laid out the town, 
and Nash laid out the visitors and it was 
artistically done in both cases. 

Bath is celebrated in the writings of Fielding, 
Smollet, Jane Austen, Thackeray and Dickens. 
It is now on the decline as a gambling resort and 
the only persons kept in hot water are invalids. 
Bath is no longer fashionable. It is merely 
healthful. 

A great deal of space has been given in this 
book to disreputable kings and barons. A few 
words regarding a square gambler should be 
permissible. 

Richard Nash was an Oxford student and an 
army officer before he matriculated at the Middle 
Temple. 

William III offered him a knighthood, but 
Nash preferred a livelihood. He could not 
afford a title unless a pension accompanied it. 
William was too thrifty a Hollander to spend 
the people's taxes in that way, so Nash proceeded 
to collect his own pension. 

He went to Bath in 1704 and was made 
Master of Ceremonies to the unceremonious. 

Bath became a wide-open town, thronged by 
the fashion, beauty and debility of Europe. It 
prospered financially, but never were cleanliness 
and godliness so widely separated. After 
gambling was abolished, Nash was pensioned by 



70 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the town and when he died in 1761 he was 
buried in splendor. Oliver Goldsmith was his 
biographer. 

The town itself is John Wood's best monument. 
It is beautiful with its streets in concentric rings 
rising one above the other to the tops of the sur- 
rounding hills. 

The hotel rates at Bath are about the only 
relics of its former grandeur. Our hotel flanks 
the Avon and from a balcony we survey the 
beautiful scene. A triple arched bridge spans the 
river above the dam. Stores occupy both sides 
of the bridge. Mr. Banks has the end shop. He 
is associated with the oldest family in Bath, the 
river Banks. A piano dealer has a store on the 
quay. He boasts the aquatic name of Duck. 

In the dining room of the. Empire Hotel there 
is some splendor in the way of dress. A number 
of guests are in wheeled chairs, A concealed 
orchestra plays softly. The menu and waiters 
are French. There is an atmosphere of quiet- 
ness and elegance about everything, that is very 
restful. It is the one hotel in England where 
water is served without argument. Everyone 
comes here for the water, and you are not stared 
at as you sip the harmless but unusual beverage. 

It is interesting to watch the town wake up. 
Few Americans avail themselves of the oppor- 
tunity at home, for the home town usually wakes 



Bath 71 

up first. But you may sleep as long as possible 
in England, toss restlessly on your couch for an 
interminable time after you awaken, dress lei- 
surely and still be on the streets before the shops 
open. 

This morning the only merchant ready for 
business at eight o'clock is a dog vender, whose 
stock-in-trade is one diminutive puppy and its 
nervous mother. There is always a market for 
puppies at a health resort. Curs and cures seem 
to be subtly connected in some way. 

The butcher is the next man to open his tiny 
shop. A policeman noticing a futile effort to get 
into a stationer's says, "It will open about the 
half-hour, sir, or as near as may be." His ex- 
treme caution in avoiding a positive statement 
recalls the Pullman porter's reply to the anxious 
passenger's query as to when the train would 
arrive in New York. 

'Tt's due to arrive at ten, boss, but there is 
many a train that stahts, and nevah arrives." 

The Angel is on Westgate Street. Local tra- 
dition says that this is the inn whose door blew 
shut on Mr. Winkle and left him shivering in 
his dilemma. 

A sign on the street corner tells the public that 
"Through vehicular traffic will be suspended on 
this street on and after June 6, 19 10, for about 
ten days." 



'J2 Three Weeks m the British Isles 

The last line on the menu of our hotel reads 
"Empire Hotel Bath" without any punctuation. 
It may be a grandiloquent reference to the finger 
bowls, but it is probably the name and address 
of the hotel. 

The book shops all carry heavy stocks of Pick- 
wick Papers and Henry Esmond. The wise 
novelist or poet hitches his incident to a definite 
location, and the local authorities do the rest. But 
for Gray's Elegy, the simple beauty of the Stoke- 
Pogis churchyard would attract few visitors, and 
except for Moore the "Meeting of the Waters" 
would -take its place with countless other river 
junctions. 

A statue of Beau Nash is enshrined in a niche 
in the Great Pump Room. He was a dumpy lit- 
tle man with long curls and short trousers. 

Drinks are dispensed from a pretty little alcove 
decorated with stained glass windows and a 
statue of the Angel of Bethesda. Both varieties 
of pool are thus commemorated, but Nash kept 
his stirred more constantly. 

The Roman Baths built by Claudius in 43 A. D. 
were originally nine hundred feet long and three 
hundred and fifty feet wide. On one side is a 
diving stone worn smooth by countless bathers. 
The tank, which is still intact, is sixty-eight by 
one hundred and ten feet. It is filled with water 
and the bottom is covered with lead in sheets five 



Bath 73 

feet wide and ten feet long. This forty tons of 
lead would have been very useful to Cromwell 
and might have saved a church roof or two, but 
the baths had not been uncovered in his day. 

The Roman pavement is now cleared of debris 
and visitors walk over it. The original pipe is 
just as much of a lead pipe as it ever was and 
conveys water to the tank. The lapped joints are 
exactly the same as those made today. 

The Turkish bath of the Romans had all of the 
essentials. The Turkish bath, by the way, is more 
Irish than Turkish in its origin, and very little 
of either in its patronage. 

They had hot rooms, tepidariums, cold rooms 
and cold shower-baths before the Christian era. 
Doubtless, Roman youths foregathered here 
eighteen centuries ago and sat on marble slabs 
telling their troubles to Ethiopian attendants and 
moaning "Never again." 

One old arch is wedged together with no 
cement between the stones. It has stood for al- 
most nineteen hundred years. .'Esculapius had 
an altar beside the large tank. 

In the tepid water of one pool, cooled just a 
little below one hundred and twenty degrees, 
fishes are swimming. They are of a peculiar 
type and can live in a temperature that would 
kill other fish. This pool is near the principal 
spring which discharges five hundred and seven 



74 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



thousand gallons of hot water per day. Much of 
this water is wasted necessarily, but free baths 
for the poor are provided from the immense 
supply. 

The King's Bath dates from the sixteenth cen- 
tury. The rings that are set in the walls were 
given by people who have been helped by the 
waters. Bathers hang on to them while resting 
in the tank. The oldest ring dates from 1612. 
In other parts of the wall are recesses and seats 
for patrons. The King's Bath was very popular 
in Nash's day. 

The modern baths contain every imaginable 
device to soothe the suftering and provide rest 
for the lazy. There are small tubs and large ones 
and deep water plunges into which chairs may 
be lowered like ducking stools. There are min- 
eral, sprudel and electric baths. There are 
douches for eye, ear and throat. There are "dry" 
baths for treating separate members of the body, 
providing a maximum of remedy with a minimum 
of moisture. Everything, is complete and an army 
of men and women is in attendance. The women 
wear neat black costumes with snowy linen, and 
the men shuffle around in bath robes and slippers. 
Every courtesy is shown even the most robust 
sightseers. 

Three-wheeled pushcarts may be hired in the 
court near the Pump Room. They, with their 



Bath 75 

aged attendants, make a melancholy sort of cab 
stand. 

Bath Abbey was the third church to be built 
on this site. It has beautiful windows and an 
interesting roof. It is apparently well attended, 
as many pews bear cards reading, "Appro- 
priated." 

Lady Waller's tomb has an inscription that ap- 
parently covers the ground and certainly covers 
the tablet. It reads: 



"Sole issue of a matchless paire 
Both of their state & vertues heire 
In graces great in stature small 
As full of spirit as voyd of gall 
Cherefully grave bounteously close 
Holy without vain glorious showes 
Happy and yet from envy free 
Learn'd without pride, witty yet wise 
Reader this riddle read with me 
Here the good Lady Waller lyes." 

If the good lady wrote that epitaph, she un- 
doubtedly did. 

Beside her tablet is a stone commemorating the 
virtues of her husband, Sir William, It is blank, 
not because Sir William lacked virtues, but be- 
cause he is buried in London. The alabaster 
monument, however, includes the whole family, 
father, mother and two children, in a group. It 



'j^ Three Weeks in the British Isles 

must feel queer to be sculptured in childhood and 
gradually outgrow your little marble twin. 

There is a convent out Pulteney Road which 
displays a sign, "High School for Girls Prepara- 
tory for Boys." Whoever heard of a school for 
girls that was not ? 

Victoria Park and Botanical Gardens are the 
scene of Bath's annual pageant. Most of Eng- 
land's historic cities have these pageants com- 
memorating great events and daring deeds in 
their local history. 




OLD ROMAN BATH 



Oxford 77 



VII 

Oxford 



rVTV^ take the 12:35 "^P" t^"^^" ^^ Oxford, 
If fl for know, O puzzled American, study- 
IIj^B ing the mysteries of Bradshaw, that 
"down" means from London, and "up" 
means towards London, whether you are north, 
south, east or west of the metropolis, so long as 
you are in England, Scotland or Wales. 

In Ireland, Dublin becomes the pole of the rail- 
road system, from which city every direction is 
"down." 

Occasionally a train porter who is in a hurry 
will rush away without a tip. This happened at 
Bath while we were looking for a sixpence. In 
some hotels we have had to search for servants 
to reward them for special courtesies. This is 
mentioned because it is at utter variance with the 
traditions and wholly unaccountable, unless June 
is th^ close season for tourists. Later in the year 
the servants may be more alert. We give the 
facts as v/e found them. 

Oxford has fifty thousand inhabitants in addi- 



78 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

tion to the students. It is at the junction of the 
Cherwell and the Thames, which latter, amid 
these classic surroundings, is called the Isis. The 
town is set in beautiful hills. The shallow cross- 
ing of the river for cattle at this point gave it 
its name. 

The university is credited to Alfred the Great, 
but it was three centuries after his time before 
anything worthy the name of college was started 
here. 

It had its first impetus in the quarrel between 
Henry II and Thomas a Becket. The King for- 
bade English clerks to study in Paris, because 
Philip II and Becket were chummy. 

Most of our modern blessings are the out- 
growth of some feud, just as most of the cathe- 
drals were paid for by mediaeval robbers who 
were afraid to die rich. 

Erasmus of Rotterdam studied at Oxford. 
Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer were burned in 
the town by order of Mary. This was the capital 
of England on two occasions, but not for long. 
King, parliament and courts fled here from the 
plague in 1625 and 1665. 

Jerome says that it must have been worth a 
small plague to be rid of both legislators and 
lawyers. 

The list of graduates of Oxford is like the 
roster of a hall of fame. It includes among hun- 



Oxford 79 

dreds of others scarcely less known, the names 
of Wycliffe, John Wesley, Newman, Gladstone, 
Ruskin and William Penn. One of the best- 
loved names is that of the mathematician Charles 
Lutwidge Dodgson, who, as "Lewis Carroll," de- 
lighted countless young and old children with the 
adventures of Alice in Wonderland. 

Last, but not least in his impress on history, 
should be mentioned that ruthless expander of 
British empire, Cecil John Rhodes, of whom 
Mark Twain wrote a satirical eulogy, concluding 
with the hope that when Cecil Rhodes died, he, 
Twain, might have a piece of the rope. 

Rhodes died in bed suffering the inevitable 
punishment of those who measure achievement 
by gold or lands, voicing the regret that would 
still have been his had he lived a century, "So 
much to do, so little done." 

Cecil Rhodes had two loves in life. One was 
the British Empire in Africa and the other his 
alma mater. When a student at Oxford his 
health broke down and he was ordered to go to 
South Africa. He went and became robust, but 
the general result of the prescription reminds one 
of the time the bagpipes were played outside the 
hospital window to soothe the dying Scotchman. 
Cheered and strengthened by the familiar noise, 
Sandy recovered, but every other patient in the 
hospital died. 



8o Three Weeks m the British Isles 

Cecil Rhodes returned from South Africa after 
two years' residence, a nineteen-year-old million- 
aire, and matriculated at Balliol College in 1872. 
The next year he broke down again and went 
back to Africa. In 1876 he was again in Oxford 
and took his bachelor's and master's degrees. 
They might just as well have given them to him 
in the first place. He was sure to get them. 

He loved money as a means and for the power 
it gave. The Jameson raid in 1895 destroyed 
Rhodes' personal standing. Jameson was a 
Scotch doctor whose bloodthirsty soul would not 
be satisfied with his ordinary practice, so he be- 
came one of a long line of physicians who have 
become soldiers, 

Cecil Rhodes died in 1902 and left that remark- 
able will which may, under Providence, do much 
to heal the wounds made by his ambition. By 
its terms more than one hundred and fifty young 
men are provided with scholarships at Oxford, 
each worth fifteen hundred dollars a year. Each 
state in the United States is entitled to two schol- 
arships, so that three-fifths of the beneficiaries 
come from this country. It was a grand, a beau- 
tiful plan, worthy of the big mind that conceived 
it, and the nearest he could hope to come to mak- 
ing restitution for the death and misery that 
trailed in the wake of his boundless ambition. 

We enjoyed the sunshine in England very 



Oxford ^i 

much. It was warmer outdoors than within. 
Hotels are not heated and some of them felt like 
sixty, Fahrenheit. After walking about in the 
warm air you are [chilled by the interiors of the 
buildings. 

We had quite a time finding the Oxford train 
at Bath. There are several platforms, and one 
must cross the tracks either by a subway or a 
viaduct. We did not know whether to go up to 
the down train or down to the up train until a 
friendly porter led us all the way to our com- 
partment. 

When the train started there were ten adults 
and two infants in our compartment. One two- 
year-old child clamored for the window seat. 
The young woman who had the place naturally 
desired to keep it, so she offered to take the 
youngster on her lap and let him look out of 
the window. This was no sooner accomplished 
than, after one glance at the passing landscape, 
young Hercules curled up and went to sleep. 
The mother serenely continued her conversation 
with her neighbor and the perspiring maiden held 
the boy for more than two hours. Query: Will 
that young lady's philanthropy be sufficiently 
robust to survive the experience or will she 
apply for membership in the "Never Again" 
club? 

Reaching Oxford, we take a carriage and ride 



82 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

first to Christ Church and walk across the green 
velvet of Tom Quad to the Hall with its high 
oak ceilings and walls adorned and otherwise 
by portraits of students, John Locke, Canning, 
Gladstone and Morley. Among others, Eliza- 
beth's picture is there, happy in its masculine 
surroundings, for she always had a warm spot 
in her heart for the boys. Henry VHI, looking 
as homely as most modern polygamists, gazes 
out from a frame by virtue of his having 
founded this college. Keen-eyed Wolsey profits 
by the contrast with the heavy-jowled master 
whom he controlled. 

The kitchen in Christ College is busy to-day, 
for the annual dinner of the tenants is being 
prepared. After dinner tea will be served in 
the hall. They could not have a public execution 
in England without tea. The tenants will pre- 
sent a portrait of some one to the college. The 
picture is standing veiled on an easel at the 
upper end of the room. 

The students dine here at seven-thirty every 
evening and the kitchen is amply equipped for 
handling a multitude of hungry youths. The 
big spits will roast forty legs of mutton or 
seventy fowls at a time. The old griddle of 
Wolsey's time hangs flat on the wall like King 
Arthur's Round Table at Winchester. There 
are immense stoves for cooking soup and others 



Oxford 83 

for vegetables and a big oven for baking cakes 
and meat pies. They do not bake their own 
bread. During the regular college term a. ton 
of meat a week is handled in this kitchen. 

The Cathedral is the smallest cathedral with 
the oldest tower in England. It is used as a 
chapel by Christ Church. It has curious double 
arches sustaining the roof. The north window 
is beautiful. Bishop Berkeley, who said there 
was no matter, is buried here. Wolsey re-ar- 
ranged a great deal of the nave. He was an 
adept at navery of this sort. 

Brasenose College has within its hall the old 
brass-nosed knocker from which its name is 
derived. This college has on its list a doleful 
lot of graduates, including Fox, who wrote the 
Book of Martyrs, and Burton, that keen but 
uninteresting dissector of melancholy. 

University College contains the famous Shel- 
ley memorial, a nude figure of the poet lying on 
his back. A glance at this tribute of well- 
meaning but misguided admirers should cause 
any poet to change his occupation or else take 
a course in physical culture. 

St. Mary Magdalen College is called Maudlin, 
just as St. John College is Sin j in. To disregard 
these facts is to throw yourself outside the bar- 
riers of culture. There are other violations of 
the law of pronunciation in England. It is the 



84 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

correct thing to pronounce proper names 
improperly. Here is a short list, very incomplete, 
but serving as a fearful example: 

Beauchamp is pronounced Beacham. 

Beauvoir is pronounced Beaver. 

Cholmondeley is pronounced Chumley. 

Seven Oaks is pronounced Sennocks. 
• Chaworth is pronounced Chorth. 

Haworth is pronounced Horth. 

Hawarden is pronounced Harden. 

Wemyss is pronounced Weems. 

Strachan is pronounced Strawn. 

Mainwaring is pronounced Mannering. 

Marjoribanks is pronounced Marshbanks. 

Until finally we told a hotel clerk, a young 
lady, who was poring over our signature, "It 
is pronounced Hinnam," and she accepted it 
without a doubt. 

Occasionally Americans become entangled in 
this labyrinth as did the young lady on the home- 
coming steamer. She said, "You English pro- 
nounce your proper names so queerly. For 
instance, there is the name you spell, 
B-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p and pronounce Chumley." 

However Maudlin the pronunciation, Magda- 
len is the most beautiful college in Oxford. It 
has a fine tower and a grassy quadrangle sur- 
rounded by grotesque images. Its cloisters are 
restful and impressive. Addison's Walk is a 




TOM QUAD— CHRIST CHURCH 



Oxford 85 

very long one around the grounds and one 
which few sightseers care to take in its entirety. 
It is several miles in extent and densely shaded. 
The chapel has beautiful sepia windows, a most 
wonderful effect in glass. There is an outdoor 
chapel where the choir sings a Latin requiem 
every May Day at five o'clock in the morning. 

New College has a circular green instead of 
the usual quadrangle. There is a pronounced 
rivalry between the colleges and at each one 
the person who showed us about was emphatic 
in pointing out the things in which his particular 
institution excelled. 

Bodleian Library has an immense collection of 
manuscripts and coins in addition to its seven 
hundred thousand books. 

Keble College exhibits a small painting in its 
Chapel, Hunt's Light of the World. You pay 
sixpence for admission to the room where the 
picture is hanging, but you have to stamp around 
and make a good deal of noise to attract the 
custodian. St. John's (Sinjin's) has a magnifi- 
cent lawn and its gardens are beautiful. 

There is a cross in Broad Street indicating 
the spot where Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley 
were burned. The marking is inconspicuous. 
The desire to perpetuate the fame of the martyrs 
is modified by the wish to forget the deed, so a 
simple brass cross is sunk into the pavement. 



86 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

You cannot forget for a moment that you are 
in a college town, and yet only the best symp- 
toms of college life are in evidence. Possibly 
the boys become more turbulent in term time, but 
even at their wildest they are not violent. Many 
are wandering around in flannel suits with 
cricket bats or tennis racquets, but there is very 
little expression of comradeship among them. 
We did not hear a single young man hail 
another across a street. 



Kenilworth and Stratford 87 



m 



VIII 

Kenilworth and Stratford 

E take the six-thirteen train for War- 
wick. While waiting at the station, B. 
sits on a truck with the usual result. 
It is getting so now that they follow 
B. around and re-oil the trucks when she is 
through wiping them with her skirts. 

There is a disquieting difference of opinion as 
to whether or not we change cars at Leamington. 
At any rate we are told to take the "Leamington 
slip." Our train goes through to Birmingham-, 
but they "slip" this car at Leamington and it 
either goes on to Warwick or it does not, and 
nobody seems to know. 

A very gloomy old lady in black with purple ^ 
trimmings sits opposite. She is mourning the 
King's death and looks as if she would never 
recover from the shock. Her face must have 
been years acquiring the lines of grief which 
have been deepened by recent events. Some of ^ 
the mourning seems perfunctory, as is natural 
enough, but this old lady is like Moriah in Ruth 



88 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

McEnery Stuart's inimitable story; when she 
mourns, she mourns. 

At Leamington we conclude to take a chance 
and stay in our compartment. While waiting, 
a pretty sixteen-year-old girl is put into our car 
by a red-cheeked boy companion. He tipped 
his hat, but remained in view. She settled 
herself and arranged her skirts. Then she 
glanced at the disconsolate youth, sprang to her 
feet and went to the door. He stood on the 
step and they glanced shyly down the platform 
where their friends were. She murmured some- 
thing and drew him into the car and kissed him 
lightly on the cheek. He blushed a deeper red. 
She said, "Buck up," and the train pulled out, 
leaving him bravely trying to whistle, but mak- 
ing a poor out at it. The cheeks of both were 
wet. It was a simple incident, but the others 
in the compartment knew that they had witnessed 
something more real than was ever put between 
book covers, and nobody smiled at the little 
scene. 

We arrive at Warwick and register at the 
Warwick Arms. The lady clerk assigns us to 
a room and we plunge her into confusion by 
asking what floor it is on and asserting posi- 
tively that we will not go above the second floor 
in a liftless hotel. She assures us that there is 
no cause for worry. There are only two floors. 



Kenilworth and Stratford 89 

Our room is on the top floor and is made 
imposing by a large mahogany four-poster. 

Landor, the emphatic friend of Dickens, was 
born in this quiet town which often must have 
trembled with his roar. Two of England's truly 
great women, George Eliot and Ellen Terry, 
were natives of this shire. The Forest of Arden 
and Bosworth Field are near by. 

The battle of Bosworth Field was fought in 
1485, but the ground is less changed than at 
Waterloo. The spring where Richard III drank 
is still flowing. The spot where he was killed 
is unmarked, but it is at the junction of three 
roads to Shenton, Dodlington and Bosworth. 
His body was buried at Leicester in Greyfriar's 
Church where, later, Wolsey was entombed. 

Richard III had the misfortune to be bio- 
graphed by his opponents and successors, Henry 
VII and VIII, Mary and Elizabeth. These two 
charming half-sisters agreed on only one point, 
viz. : that the best way to make the Tudor fam- 
ily look respectable was to paint its predecessor, 
Richard III, in as black colors as possible. They 
had the paint and the artists and Shakespeare 
cast in adamant the material furnished by biased 
historians. The great dramatist was a creature 
of his day and age and dependent for his 
existence and livelihood on the patronage of the 
court, hence, as an historian he was about as 



90 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

impartial as a fourth class postmaster is when 
discussing the administration. 

Turning from the unreal creatures of history 
to the realities of fiction, Warwick was visited 
by Dombey, Mrs. Skewton and Edith. 

This is a strong pro-Shakespeare country. 
With Stratford only a few miles away, we have a 
delicacy about ordering bacon with our eggs. Ar- 
riving on Saturday evening, the maid asked if 
we wanted anything special for breakfast, ex- 
plaining that it would be impossible to procure 
fish or chops on Sunday. 

The matter impressed us very lightly at the 
time, for we had yet to learn of the hermetical 
tightness of the Sabbath lid. If England was as 
rigid in Sunday observance three centuries ago 
as she is today, there must have been other 
grounds for the discontent of the Puritans. 

This hotel is on the Warwick grounds, very 
near to the Castle, and is under the management 
of the Warwick family. Do not misunderstand 
me. The earl did not preside at the desk, nor 
receipt the bills. But, like some other noble land- 
lords whom we later patronized, he sees to it that 
visitors to his realm are assured comfortable en- 
tertainment at the market price. This hotel has 
a history dating from 1591. I quote from its 
booklet: "It is a first-class hotel, catering spe- 
cially for families, tourists, motorists and gentle- 



Kenilworth and Stratford 91 

men." That subtle distinction between the last 
named two appeals to us. 

Warwick was a fortress prior to the Roman in- 
vasion. In Saxon times it was part of the King- 
dom of Mercia. The Danes ravaged it repeat- 
edly. In 915 Ethelfreda, daughter of Alfred the 
Great, built a castle here to protect the country 
against them. Canute demolished the castle in 
1016. But did Canute escape unpunished? No, 
he is dead. We saw his bones in Salisbury Ca- 
thedral. At least, we saw the box which con- 
tained them. 

There are incandescent lights in the Warwick 
arms, but there is no hot water. If these few 
lines meet the eyes of the Earl of Warwick, they 
will notify him that I shaved with cold water in 
his hotel and did not like it. The servant is sum- 
moned by pulling a bell-cord, just like the one the 
villain always cuts before braving the master of 
the house in the drawing-room. Wonder of won- 
ders, it works. We can hear the jingle away 
down at the other end of the hall and footsteps 
approach, in answer to the summons. 

A man by the name of Christmas owns the 
store across the street. England is so full of 
peculiar names that my admiration for Dickens' 
inventive genius has dwindled appreciably. He 
did not need to devise outlandish names. All that 
was necessary was to select them from the sign 



92 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

boards, modify them sufficiently to make them 
probable, and use them. 

The railroad service in England dwindles al- 
most to the vanishing point on Sunday, so we 
drove to Kenilworth and Stratford. 

We walked about Warwick awhile and almost 
circumnavigated the Castle, but found no break 
in its walls. Therefore we must refer you to 
more fortunate travelers for a description of its 
old towers and priceless curios. The only help 
we can give you is to warn you to seek some 
more nearly "wide-open" town or district for 
your Sunday visit. 

We drove to Kenilworth across the Avon and 
had a beautiful view of the Castle from the 
bridge. The road turns north past Guy's Cliffe, 
now the home of Lord Algernon Percy. The 
family are in residence, but not "at home" to 
dusty tourists. Guy's Cave is along the river. 
Here he lived, the sworn enemy of sanitary 
plumbing and the safety razor, for several years 
after his return from the Holy Land. His Count- 
ess gave him alms from time to time, but never 
recognized him, and small wonder. At his death, 
however, he revealed his identity and was washed 
and given a decent burial. The relationship of 
cleanliness to godliness had not then been 
discovered. 

Cedar Avenue, leading to the residence, is over- 



Kenil worth and Stratford 93 

gxown, but beautiful. The gate is gone, but in- 
truders are kept out by the tangle of weeds across 
the open space. 

Although Guy's Clif¥e spurns our sixpences, 
we are enthusiastically welcomed at the old mill- 
house and weir. The path leads between meadows 
golden with buttercups. A poetic old lodgekeeper 
tells all visitors about Guy and the dun cow. Most 
persons will be grieved to have proudly pointed 
out to them the name of "H, Irving" carved in 
the stone wall of the mill. We sincerely hope 
Henry did not do it. Maybe the lodgekeeper 
lied. He assured us that the mill was 1,700 years 
old and that beats Baedeker a thousand years, 
so, perhaps, he was lying about Sir Henry. There 
are some other names there, but we positively 
refuse to encourage such vandalism by giving 
publicity to them. 

The drive leads past Wootton Court and the 
village of Leek Wootton and between fields of 
wild flowers, white, red and yellow. A variegated 
elm stands near a cottage. The driver says: 
"My brother is a 'ead-gardener an' 'e never see 
one an' h'l never did, but han h' American gentle- 
man said as 'ow 'e 'ad two on 'is plice at 'ome." 
All honor to the American gentlemen who refuse 
to be awed by guides. But there was a note of 
skepticism in the driver's voice as though he were 
only half convinced. 



94 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

The first thing that looks mediaeval as you ap- 
proach Kenilworth is the big moat around the 
Castle. This is dry and overgrown with grass. 
A few minutes later the grand exterior of the 
ruins bursts on our deUghted eyes, but alas ! it is 
Sunday and the gates are locked. The red stone 
walls are flecked with moss and overgrown with 
ivy. The fine oriel windows are plainly visible, 
but we are denied the privilege of pacing the 
great Presence Chamber or entering the room 
occupied by unhappy Amy Robsart. We insist 
on our right to weep over Scott's story and to 
disregard the prosy historians who give the date 
of poor Amy's death as 1560, eighteen years 
prior to the big blow-out at Kenilworth in Eliza- 
beth's honor. 

Even the elements conspire to make the trip a 
failure. A high wind makes the tripod tremble 
and photographic results are problematical. 

Ugly tumble-down stores line the road opposite 
the entrance. These include a barber shop and 
the inevitable tea parlor. Bicyclists are numer- 
ous and many appeals are made for their patron- 
age. Clarendon, who owns the property, has 
numerous signs up threatening, trespassers with 
prosecution. We obtain a better view for our 
camera from the meadow, southeast of the castle, 
over a field of cloth of gold woven with but- 
tercups. 



Kenilworth and Stratford 95 

We return to Warwick for the regulation mid- 
day lunch of cold meats, bread and marmalade 
or jam, concluding with rhubarb or gooseberry 
tarts. 

In our honor they have christened something 
that they wanted to dispose of "American Ice 
Cream." It is a sort of custard, savoring neither 
of America, ice nor cream. Coffee is ordered, 
for which an extra sixpence per cup is added to 
our bill. It is poor coffee. Good coffee is rare 
in England, and served with blue milk. Cream 
is sixpence extra, so that a cup of potable coffee 
costs the devotee a shilling or twenty-four cents. 

After lunch we drive to Stratford, although, 
being Sunday, the shops and Shakespeare's house 
are closed to all visitors, except Mr. Roosevelt 
and party, who are there to-day. 

We have the same carriage and driver, but a 
new horse. This one has his mane roached until 
it resembles an English hedge. Shelburne Church 
is in the distance and the village of Barford, 
whose obscurity did not protect it from the Pro- 
tector, as is evidenced by the scars on its old 
church tower. An occasional old pump rears its 
head high in air, as though the moisture about its 
roots had caused it to grow. These are reminders 
of coaching days. 

Several fields are planted in winter beans, 
which are grown as forage for horses. 



96 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

The road passes through Charlecote village 
and runs for miles along the boundaries of Char- 
lecote Park, filled with deer, the descendants 
maybe of that happy beast who was so fortunate 
as to fall into Will Shakespeare's hands. We 
stop at the very spot where he crossed the road, 
and sit on the gate, whose complicated structure 
caused the fatal delay which gave Shakespeare 
into the gamekeeper's clutches. 

We fool around that old gate for a long time. 
It has a fascination for us. We take photographs 
of each other sitting on it, We want to try car- 
rying a deer over it, but they will not let strangers 
enter the property at all, since the Lucy family 
died out and Sir Henry Fairfax married the old- 
est Miss Lucy. Why are people who marry 
money so much more careful with it than those 
who inherit it? 

The park has passed out of the possession of 
the Lucy family and now belongs to the Fair- 
faxes. We try to get some local traditions from 
the driver, but he is hazy, in sympathy with the 
weather, and grows more eloquent regarding 
Squire Phillips' monument over on the hillside 
than the immortal Shakespeare. 

It is a remarkably bleak, cold day, with neither 
rain nor sun. Possibly June is too early for a 
visit to England, but the blooms are the thickest 



Kenilworth and Stratford 97 

and the tourists most scarce in June, so we 
chose it. 

In Stratford everything is closed tightly and 
neither argument nor corruption availeth, Sigxis 
are en rapport with their surroundings, as in the 
case of the As You Like It Tea Rooms, A post- 
card store displays this: "Have I not here the 
best cards ? King John." 

We manage to icoax the keeper of a tiny shop 
to violate the law and sell us some souvenirs as 
evidence of the fact that we have made the pil- 
grimage and are entitled to sit in any literary 
club with our legs crossed a la Crusader. 

We stand and look at the long, low, rakish 
house on Henley Street, where was born the boy 
whom the world honors to-day, but who, in his 
youth, startled his placid neighbors with his es- 
capades. The house is a museum filled with relics 
of its famous tenant. 

The school where he was taught a very little 
is over the Guildhall. It was founded in 1482. 
His teachers were Walter Roche and Simon 
Hunt, who believed, according to William Win- 
ter, that learning, like other burdens, should be 
delivered in the rear. At the southeast corner 
of Bridge and High Streets is the house for- 
merly occupied by Shakespeare's son-in-law, 
Thomas Quincey. It was once a prison and called 
The Cage. 



98 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Stratford has' about twenty thousand visitors 
every year, of whom probably six thousand are 
Americans, always the most voracious, if not the 
most judicious, of readers. 

In front of the Shakespeare Memorial Build- 
ing are sculptured groups symbolizing Comedy 
and Tragedy. These were purchased with money 
realized from a benefit given by Mary Anderson 
in 1885, who then made her first appearance as 
Rosalind. 

The library contains five thousand seven hun- 
dred and ninety volumes of Shakespeare, includ- 
ing two hundred and nine English editions, a 
Russian edition in nine volumes, and three com- 
plete editions in Dutch. 

The Fountain was dedicated in 1887. It was 
the gift of G. W. Childs, of Philadelphia. In 
1888 Winter wrote, "The inhabitants of War- 
wickshire, guarding and maintaining their Strat- 
ford Fountain, will not forget by whom it was 
given." We are anxious to verify this prophecy 
by actual inquiry of a few citizens, but the only 
Stratford person near the fountain was a female 
of uncertain age and less certain speech, who 
had not reached her then condition by drinking 
from its hospitable waters. She was busily en- 
gaged in waving away imaginary small boys and 
we did not address her. 

However, we are satisfied that the inhabitants 



H 

n 

d 

o 




Kenilworth and Stratford 99 

will not forget, unless they forget how to read 
the inscription, which is carved deeply in the 
stone, setting forth the facts, with name and 
address of donor. 

The Avon is legally navigable from its mouth 
at Tewkesbury, where it empties into the Severn 
at Warwick, but the laws of navigation are 
sometimes as hard to enforce as Sunday closing 
laws and the navigator who tries to go above 
Evesham will find some of those blessed barriers 
which river men hate so cordially. Annual races 
are rowed at Stratford. Above Charlecote the 
river becomes a marsh. 

It is a long drive to Shottery, where stands 
Anne Hathaway's cottage. Of course it was 
closed, but it was very pretty, embosomed in 
trees and framed in flowers and hedges. Half 
a dozen children pulled wild flowers by the 
road-side and offered them for sale. 

Back of the cottage stands the Cottswold Hills, 
covered with haze. The driver is more of a 
devotee of Marie Corelli than Shakespeare and 
points out her home half a dozen times. Truly 
a live authoress is better than a dead dramatist 
to a strict utilitarian. 

A big crowd is massed about the entrance to 
the Church of the Holy Trinity. Service is over 
and we are pleased by the devotion which mani- 
fests itself in a reluctance to leave the sacred 



v^ 



lOO Three Weeks in the British Isles 

edifice. Later we learn that Mr. Roosevelt and 
family are the magnets which hold the populace. 

There is an American flag flying from a house 
on High Street, once the home of the mother of 
John Harvard. A number of intoxicated yeomen 
are arguing as to the purpose of the decoration, 
but they soon disperse. They are the first crowd 
of drunken men we have seen since landing in 
England and we really saw very few intoxicated 
people anywhere on the v/hole trip. 

We go to the Red Horse Inn, loaf awhile in 
Washington Irving's room, tea up and drive nine 
miles back to Warwick. The road winds along 
under the spreading branches of trees, centuries 
old, some with bronze-green trunks, and almost 
all with ivy climbing over them. Cyclists, male 
and female, pedal past us decorously, while occa- 
sionally a motor-cycle chugs by, disturbing four 
of our senses and making the fifth fairly itch to 
unhorse him. There is something about a motor- 
cyclist that jars on the sensitive soul. They 
undoubtedly cover the ground, but on the other 
hand the ground covers them. In appearance 
they are a mixture of Ku-Klux, Servite brother 
and deep sea diver. The honk of the occasional 
automobile is dignified in contrast with the 
splutter of the motor-cycle. 

In walking about Warwick, we discovered a 
memorial of Queen Victoria's visit in 1858. It 



Kenilworth and Stratford loi 

stands in front of the Market Hall on a back 
street. 

The newest post-cards on sale in these small 
towns depict the reading of the proclamation 
announcing the succession of George V. 

Traveling in England is much more expensive 
than on the continent. One cannot escape the 
increased cost of living by going abroad. The 
only money we really saved was a few dollars 
on gloves in London, and seventeen cents on a 
hair cut in Cork. 

Our seven hours' driving to-day cost us $6.50. 
Our room in Warwick, with no running water, 
is $2,16 per day. A decent dinner costs from 
$1.20 up. It is very much dearer than Holland 
and the accommodations are not so good. Per- 
haps a shilling would not look so large in the 
sunshine, but these gloomy days set you to 
counting your American Express orders and 
worrying over your expenses. 

As before remarked, we are, in a way, the 
guests of the Earl of Warwick, and at much less 
expense than if he had taken us into the Castle. 
We should not have enjoyed being locked up 
all day Sunday, anyhow. 

The Beauchamps acquired this property in the 
thirteenth century from some one who was away 
from home at the time or who belonged to the 
minority party. The Grevilles, Earls of Brooke 



102 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

and Warwick, are descendants of the Beau- 
champs and have been in possession since James 
I. Queen Elizabeth, who had as many head- 
quarters as George Washington, and really 
should have carried a line of samples, stayed 
here on her way to Kenilworth. Elizabeth was 
handicapped by inferior transportation facilities, 
but if she were living now she would probably 
be making speeches from the back end of 
railroad trains. 

She stopped here over night in 1572. The 
book does not say why, but we suspect that she 
arrived on a Saturday night and had to wait until 
Monday for Kenilworth to open. According 
to Scott, Amy Robsart did not stop anywhere 
on her way to Kenilworth. 

Inside the Castle are many relics of Guy, to 
whom the term "Main Guy" was originally ap- 
plied. He was the Mark Hanna of his day. He 
did not care who wore the crown if he could fix 
the tariff schedules. 

We told you of our near-visit to Lord 
Algernon Percy, who owns Guy's Cliffe. The 
name sounds like a light opera tenor, but he is 
the proprietor of several quarter sections of 
unimproved land in this neighborhood. 

It cost us as much in tips to see the old mill 
and weir as to have seen the whole bluff — Cliffe, 
I mean. 



Kenil worth and Stratford 103 

We are trying to maintain our practice of 
tipping for actual service rendered, but the Eng- 
lish servant lacks the finesse of the continental 
menial and you have less of the comfortable 
feeling of scattering largesse. Still justice com- 
pels the statement that we have seen railway 
porters perform much gratuitous service for 
unattended old ladies and do it cheerfully. 

We arise at five-thirty to get a train for 
Birmingham en route to Rowsley (pronounced 
Rosely). By the way, Stratford's distinguished 
visitor must have recognized the Warwick Coat 
of Arms, which appears frequently hereabouts. 
They call it the Bear and Ragged Staff, but to 
the American it looks like a Teddy Bear and a 
Big Stick. 

This morning is cloudy and cold, like yester- 
day. There is an engraving in the hotel dining 
room, a snow scene representing an old woman 
trudging home with a bundle of fagots on her 
back. We christened it "A June Day in 
Warwick." 

The noble peacocks in the back yard of the 
castle awoke us this morning. If peacocks, 
feathered and otherwise, would only realize how 
disillusioning they are when they open their 
mouths, they would be careful. Even more than 
children, they should be seen and not heard. 

Our hotel has a typical old smoke room off 



104 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the office, which is also the bar. The whisky is 
contained in a big glass urn with a faucet and 
is drawn in liberal portions. 

In some sections of England and Scotland 
they make and sell on the premises home brewed 
ale of a very low voltage, alcoholically speaking, 
but inexpensive. A stranger dropping into a 
small "pub" where a number of yokels were 
seated, drinking home brewed, asked the woman 
in charge if she was not afraid that her cus- 
tomers would become intoxicated and make a 
disturbance. 

"Noo," she replied, *T never knew any on 'em 
to get droonk on the stuff. I had two men 
bust." 

Our hotel displays the usual sign of a licensed 
inn, a bunch of grapes. Some saloons and bars 
have six days' license and some have seven and 
this is indicated on their signs. 



Haddon Hall and Chatswortli 105 



IX 

Haddon Hall and Chatsworth 



p^Sl E are going to Rowsley to-day to visit 
If f 1 Haddon Hall, and see the steps down 
■J^ which ran Dorothy Vernon, and after- 
wards view the splendors of Chats- 
worth, one of the six residences of the Duke of 
Devonshire. We will be all day in Derbyshire 
in the section known as the Peak. 

Bakewell Church is interesting and well worth 
a visit if you have the time. Sir John Manners 
and Dorothy are buried therein beneath a stately 
monument. Sir John survived his wife twenty- 
seven years. 

We change cars at Birmingham and also 
change railroads, leaving the Great Western at 
Snow Hill station and driving over to New St. 
Station of the Midland Railway. Our approach 
to Birmingham is through the usual smutty 
suburbs of a manufacturing town. We take 
a hansom to the other depot and drive up and 
down hill in a manner that suggests Kansas 
City. Our driver takes us to the wrong plat- 



io6 Three Weeks iti the British Isles 

form for the Derby train and is upbraided by 
the station porter for his ignorance. It is a 
two blocks' ride to the proper doorway for 
platform four, but fortunately we have ample 
time. 

Derby once belonged to Peveril of the Peak, 
a product of one of the unrecorded conquests 
of William the Conqueror. Derby is supposed 
to appear in "Adam Bede" 'as the town of 
Stoniton where Hetty Sorrell was tried. 

We look about us for peaks and find none, but 
learn that The Peak was an ancient family name, 
not connected with the landscape in any way. 

Our first stop is at Tamworth, which was the 
home of Robert Marmion, prototype of Scott's 
hero. Tamworth was also the residence of Peel, 

Burton-on-Trent is on this ride. It is repre- 
sented in parliament very amply, for it is the 
home of Bass & Co. and AUsopp & Co., brewers 
of ale. Bass & Co. is the larger concern, its 
plants covering two hundred acres and employ- 
ing three or four thousand men. Its output is 
almost a million and a half barrels of ale and 
stout per year. 

In Derby we transfer to the Rowsley train. 
Our compartment is shared by a dear little old 
lady, much flustered by the unwonted excitement 
of travel, and a young woman who tries to cheer 
her up. 



Haddon Hall and Chats worth 107 

The old lady, just to show that she has been 
about a bit, says, "My dear, I'd rawther go to 
Birmingham or London. They dodge you about 
so on this ride." 

The young lady looks out the window and 
remarks that "they've taken off the front of the 
train, so that our coach is quite the beginning of 
it. My word ! Hold tight ! The engine is com- 
ing back and there'll be a bit of a bang." The 
"bit" was a very small one and she sinks back 
with a sigh of relief, exclaiming, "It was nothing 
much, after all." 

All of the cars that we saw on our travels 
had photographs in them depicting attractive 
scenes, castles, cathedrals or ruins to be viewed 
along or near the railway. 

From Derby to Rowsley we watch the gradual 
transition to the hilly landscape of the Peak 
country. The change from the placid flatness 
of southern England is very welcome. The 
streams have more current and the landscape 
is wilder. 

At Rowsley we take a carriage to Haddon 
Hall. We are admitted to the chapel and await 
the appearance of the young woman who is to 
act as guide. The property belongs to the Duke 
of Rutland, who seems to have the correct point 
of view of himself as custodian of this rare old 
Hall. 



io8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Haddon Hall was .'given by the Conqueror to 
his son, William Peveril, "of the Peak." In 
Henry II's reign it passed to the Avenels by 
force, and in 1195 the Vernons obtained it by 
matrimony. The last of the Vernons lived here 
in great state with a retinue of eighty servants. 
Later, the Manners increased this number to one 
hundred and forty. The Vernons owned the 
property from 1195 to 1567, and the present 
owner, the Duke of Rutland, is a descendant of 
that family. It has not been used as a residence 
since about 1700, the Rutlands moving to Belvoir 
Castle in Leicestershire at that time. 

The old chapel in which we are waiting is in- 
teresting. It contains a font, probably four hun- 
dred years, old. The windows formerly were 
filled with stained glass of remarkable beauty, but 
some one succeeded in stealing it, and it has never 
been located, although a reward of one hundred 
guineas was offered at the time. The family pews 
are still intact and uncomfortable looking. 

This chapel was restored in the seventeenth 
century, and the inscription, "G. M., 1624," on 
a rafter, gives the initials of the restorer and 
the date. 

We are taken across the old courtyard and 
enter the fourteenth century kitchen. We de- 
scend a dark, sloping passage and see the im- 
mense fire-place, into which we stoop and look 



Haddon Hall and Ghatsworth 109 

up at a bit of blue sky, or cloud more probably, 
through the length of the high chimney. We see 
the old fuel box, chopping blocks and mincing 
bowls, in disuse now for centuries. 

Most of the upper rooms are hung with tapes- 
tries, which one thoughtless tourist reaches for, 
with that uncontrollable impulse some people 
have to violate rules, but she is promptly but 
courteously warned by the guide not to touch it. 
The eye alone tells you of their great age and 
fragile condition. 

The banquet hall is about thirty-five by twenty- 
five feet. At the upper end is a raised platform 
for the "speakers' table." The walls are deco- 
rated with graceful antlers. At one end of the 
room, a wristlet is chained for holding the arm 
of any refractory guest who refused to drink. 
The wine was poured down his sleeve. In those 
days, carpets were unknown and the floor of a 
banquet hall was bedded down with dried rushes. 
The smoke from the fire ascended through a hole 
in the roof known as the louvre or opening. 

The motto of the Vernons appears everywhere, 
"Dread God and Honour the King." Their 
crest is the boar's head. The Rutland crest is a 
peacock. 

You must remember that the windows of Had- 
don Hall were not glazed but shuttered for many 
centuries. Not until the time of Henry VHI was 



no Three Weeks in the British Isles 

glass fixed in windows. Prior thereto it was 
fitted in frames and carried about with the lug- 
gage when the family moved from place to place. 

Our guide book says that great stone steps lead 
to the upper story. There may be a stone stair- 
case, but the one which we ascended was of solid 
oak timbers, for our attention was called to the 
fact. The drawing-room is on this upper floor, 
and hung with Flemish tapestry, concealing the 
doors. There is a lovely view from the windows 
of the terraces, and of Dorothy Vernon's bridge. 
The deep ornamental frieze is fine, but has been 
whitewashed. An old harpsichord stands mute in 
one corner of the room. 

We pass through the earl's dressing-room, 
which is hung with tapestry portraying hunting 
scenes, but omitting the one hunting scene that 
would be appropriate in such a room, viz.: the 
chase of the collar button. Off it is a smaller 
room, set aside for his page. 

We return through the drawing-room and visit 
the ballroom, over one hundred feet long, eight- 
een feet wide and fifteen feet high. It is wain- 
scoted with oak in beautiful panels. The peacock 
abounds in the decorations. This makes prob- 
able the theory that this room was built to cele- 
brate the marriage of John Manners and Dorothy 
Vernon in 1570. The greenish tinted old panes in 




CKADLB OF THE FIRST EARL OF RUTLAND IN HAD- 
DON HALL 



Haddon Hall and Chatsworth iii 

the windows contrast sharply with the clearer, 
newer glass. 

In the state bedroom is a bed in which Queen 
Elizabeth slept. It did not surprise us. We were 
looking for it. There is in the same room the 
cradle of the first Earl of Rutland. 

All of us but B. and the guide struggle up a 
narrow stairway to the top of Peveril Tower, just 
for a peek at the surrounding country. This is 
the highest part of the hall and dates from the 
thirteenth century. From it you can get an idea 
of the ground plan of the building. 

Thence we descend and leave the Hall by the 
same short flight of steps down which ran 
Dorothy Vernon to meet her lover, John Man- 
ners, not Sir John Manners until after the death 
of Dorothy. 

The books say that she crossed the little foot- 
bridge which spans the brook a distance from the 
door, but as there was a road within fifty feet of 
her, it seems more probable that John was wait- 
ing for her there. At any rate, she left the ball- 
room filled with laughing guests and rode away 
into Leicestershire with John, and they were mar- 
ried and lived happily ever after. There was 
some row on between the families, or more prob- 
ably a difference in religious views, that made the 
elopement necessary. 

B. sat on the stump of an old dead tree and 



112 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

changed fihus, and then we had tea in the loft of 
the barn, which has been transformed into a very 
cosy tea room. With our chairs drawn up in 
front of the blazing fire, we vote it the most 
comfortable place in England. The smoke goes 
through a hole in the roof. The young artist 
who was painting a picture of the Hall comes 
in with wife and dog, and they take seats at an 
adjoining table. The dog sniffs a friendly aroma 
and trots over to B., who soon is making, her 
usual exchange of cold meat for "what have 
you?" 

When we left the Rowsley station for Haddon 
Hall we were told that Chatsworth would not 
be open to visitors to-day. We noticed two 
coaches standing near the depot and asked why 
they were there. We were informed that they 
were waiting for a party of London press men 
who were expected shortly. 
"Will they go to Chatsworth?" 
"Oh, yes, sir; by special invitation." 
Now I had been treated with great courtesy 
in London by members of the London Press Club, 
thanks to my membership in the Press Club of 
Chicago. 

By an unwritten but universally recognized 
law, a person who grants you a favor is bound 
to grant you another one. Therefore, I deter- 



Haddon Hall and Chats worth 113 

mined then and there to be a London newspaper 
man for the day. 

After tea at Haddon Hall, while B. was photo- 
graphing Dorothy's bridge, I heard the sound of 
wheels and other sounds and two coaches filled 
with men drove up. It did not require superior 
powers of divination to identify the jolly crowd 
as newspaper men on a lark. 

I introduced myself, told them of my good 
treatment in London and of my present desire to 
invade Chatsworth. 

"Affiliate yourself with us, old chap," came 
from half a dozen lips. 

I explained that we had just been shown 
through Haddon Hall and were in somewhat of 
a hurry and suggested that we drive ahead, men- 
tion our connection with their party, without too 
many details and see what we could accomplish. 
That was agreeable to our friends and we left 
them and drove to Chatsworth. 

We explain to the driver our recent affiliation 
and he says that if we can get into Chatsworth 
at all we can get in by the private drive. We 
return through Rowsley and cross the Smelter 
mill stream, which divides the estates of Rutland 
and Devonshire. No one else owns any ground 
hereabouts. 

We drive up to the private gate of Chatsworth. 
A high-hatted lodgekeeper steps out and salutes. 



114 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

We explain that we are members of the press 
party that is expected to-day. He swings the gate 
open and we enter the beautiful grounds. 

We drive through a magnificent deer park to 
the grand mansion on the banks of the Derwent. 
It is of buff stone and free from the pollution 
of the city, it is as clean as the day it was built. 

The greatest force in the Cavendish family, 
which is the family of the Duke of Devonshire, 
was "Bess of Hardwick," the imperious dame of 
the sixteenth century, who by four successive 
marriages laid the foundations of the great power 
and wealth of the Cavendishes. She had an arro- 
gant temper, which may or may not have short- 
ened the lives of her husbands. She was first 
married at fourteen and survived her fourth hus- 
band seventeen years, dying at eighty-seven. 

At the gate to the courtyard we were again 
halted and once more gave the pass-word, "Lon- 
don press," and cleared the last barrier. The man 
at the gate telephoned somewhere for permission 
for us to take some photographs, and ruefully 
reported that the request had been refused, or 
rather that the only person authorized to issue 
a permit was off duty. Our share in his regret 
was modified by the fact that he permitted us to 
retain the camera. 

We were shown through the house by a serv- 
ant in livery, with a mourning badge for the King 



Haddon Hall and Chatsworth 115 

on his left arm. He was evidently a new man 
on the job, as he took surreptitious glances at ^ 
the catalogue he carried and tried to keep a few 
lines ahead of the exhibits. 

Chatsworth is a combined residence, art gal- 
lery and museum. Perched away off in the coun- 
try, an American is surprised by the wealth that 
has been lavished in furnishing it. But we ad- 
mired the marvelously carved wood of many of 
the rooms even more than the statues and paint- 
ings with which they were filled. The sixth duke 
seems to have been the most active of the line 
in bringing the property to its present perfection. 

It was the wife of the fifth duke whose portrait 
by Gainsborough was so mysteriously stolen and 
later recovered in the United States. 

The brother of the seventh duke was Lord 
Frederick Cavendish, who, with Burke, was as- 
sassinated in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1882. The 
twenty-eighth memorial service commemorating 
the sad event was held a few days ago in the 
chapel at Chatsworth. The present Lord Caven- 
dish now resides here. The Duke is at Devon- 
shire House in London looking after his fences 
during, the change of administration. 

To attempt to tell you all that we saw within the 
house would require pages and read like a cata- 
logue. The ceilings of the various rooms were 
painted by masters and the picture gallery is 



ii6 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

larger than many public galleries. The sculpture 
gallery has works by such men as Canova and 
Thorwaldsen. There is a statue of Pauline Bor- 
ghese, very lightly draped, as was her custom 
when being sculped. She was as daring in her 
way as her brother Napoleon in his. There is a 
gold bracelet on the marble wrist, which was 
given by her (to the sixth duke, of course) to 
be placed there. "Aha," we thought, "she did 
relent and cover up part of the statue," but we 
were mistaken. It was intended to conceal a 
flaw in the marble. 

We go out through the Orangerie into the 
garden. Here we are taken under the fatherly 
wing of a canny old Scotchman, who knew An- 
drew Carnegie fifty years ago, and who has been 
in the Duke's employ forty-three years. His pet 
exhibit is a "weeping willow." This is a foun- 
tain built in the form of a tree. Standing where 
it does, it would never be detected as a fraud, it 
is so like the trees around it. But our old guide 
turns a water tap, and leaves and twigs commence 
to spout water. Farther on is Wellington's Cas- 
cade, flowing over a rocky declivity forty or 
fifty feet high. Our path is blocked by a huge 
rock weighing tons. The old man chuckles, and 
laying one hand on it, swings it open like a gate. 
There is another rock about the same size which 
a child can tilt with his hand. All of these phe- 



Haddon Hall and Chats worth 117 

nomena, cascade and turning rocks, were brought 
here and built on the grounds, and even the water 
of the falls is piped to the top. 

The trees are beautiful and include beech, lime, 
sycamore and other forest trees. Rhododendrons 
grow wild. 

There is a magnificent fountain near the house 
which discharges one thousand gallons per min- 
ute, and the main jet goes two hundred and sixty- 
five feet into the air. 

A haze is over the surrounding hills, beautiful 
to the eye, but baffling to the camera. We have 
had some sun to-day, but it is cool and windy. 
Natives agree that this has been a remarkable 
June, but bad weather always is unprecedented, 
if you believe the natives. 

We have a laughable time getting to York. 
That is, we laugh about it now, but it took us 
a long time to see the joke. It is all the fault 
of Bradshaw, that cryptogrammatic railroad 
guide. 

We plan to leave Rowsley at four-forty for 
Ambergate. We will not gain any time by doing 
so, but we will have an hour at Ambergate for 
dinner. Then we will go to Sheffield and be there 
long enough to buy some cutlery and take the 
eight thirty-three train to York. It is all simple 
enough on the time table, and so we plan it. 

We almost forgot to say that near Rowsley is 



Ii8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

a quarry, where they dig out grindstones and 
mill stones. We passed several being hauled 
into the town. Most of the carting was with 
horses, but one load was being pulled along by a 
traction engine. The quarry is on the Duke of 
Devonshire's land, of course. Some of the stones 
were labeled for Norway, which we always sup- 
posed was the home of hard rocks. 

Well, revenons a notre Bradshaw. We found 
at Ambergate that by going to Derby we can get 
a fast train at five thirty-five. At least, we 
thought we could and were encouraged in our 
delusion by the station master at Ambergate, 
who doubtless wanted to be rid of two such in- 
quisitive people. 



York 119 



1 



X 

York 

O we started on our zigzag journey to 
York. We lived from station to sta- 
tion. We were hauled out of one train 
and jammed into another by a lot of 
patient porters who pitied our plight and crit- 
icized all the other porters and station masters 
who had displayed such amazing ignorance. We 
kept our Bradshaw before us and occasionally 
looked up with a cry of joy only to. discover 
that the station which we had finally found in 
the time table was miles behind us. The guards 
do not call out, "Change cars for Nottingham," 
but "Keej your seats for Nottingham," adding 
to' the general confusion. We had not mentioned 
Nottingham, had we? Well, we are there and 
find there is no six thirty for York. The next 
train for York leaves at seven twenty and arrives 
at ten five. We knock wood as the time is men- 
tioned, for we are now in a sort of delirious 
doubt as to the existence of any such town. 
Never was so much misinformation handed out 



120 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

so blandly and so positively as we have had 
given to us in the last two hours. Apparently, 
we could change cars and ride all night on these 
two tickets, providing that sort of dissipation 
appealed to us and we avoided York. 

We have an hour at Nottingham, the home 
of much lace and hosiery manufacture. General 
Booth of the Salvation Army was born here. 

An American is immediately recognized by 
his shoes. In the same way, the average Briton 
is marked by three or four unfailing signs. He 
wears a cap, smokes a pipe, carries a cane and 
displays corrugated hosiery. From experience 
in buying neckwear, you have an instinctive feel- 
ing that his cravat terminates at the second 
button of his vest and costs from twelve to 
eighteen cents. 

We have good chops and potatoes at the 
railway refreshment room at Nottingham, but 
that does not surprise us. Good chops are as 
inevitable on the British Isles as is bad coffee. 

A dining car is on our train, which we do not 
need. We tack again at Sheffield. This town 
has been fortified by the captains of industry. 
Its hills are scarred and entrenched by mining 
operations. 

At Sheffield we take the train which left 
Ambergate at six twenty. All of our wander- 
ings since five six have been superfluous. Our 



York 121 

hour at Sheffield was used up on the train. We 
will buy our cutlery at York. 

It grows dark about nine. Apparently none 
of the villages -we pass through has a street 
lamp. There are lights at the station and here 
and there a gleam from a window shoots across 
the road, but otherwise all is darkness. 

We are in Yorkshire, a county which has cost 
England a lot of money. Guy Fawkes was born 
here. George Washington's ancestors were 
Yorkshire men. Governor Winthrop, who intro- 
duced apples into New England and made pos- 
sible cider and apple pie, came from Yorkshire. 

Cromwell chased the Washingtons out for 
being royalists. Wouldn't that cause you to 
smile? Lord Derby was captured here and 
executed, but John Washington escaped. Clearly 
the Washingtons were always "agin the govern- 
ment." The name was Wessington or Weseyng- 
ton, but in America they adopted the custom of 
spelling it as it was pronounced. 

Eugene Aram was imprisoned in York Castle. 
The celebrated murder was committed in 
Knaresborough, sixteen and a half miles away. 

A sort of parliament was held here in 1160 
by Henry II, but York's history is much older, 
for it antedates the Christian era. The Minster 
is its leading attraction. 

The cathedrals, minsters and abbeys of Eng- 



122 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

land are the grand but inadequate residuum of 
five centuries of Roman domination. They are 
beautiful, but are not worth what they cost. 
They were built during a period of stagnation 
from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. In 
that time the population of England increased 
but ten per cent a century. There were deficient 
food, shelter and clothing and continuous disease, 
want and war. One-fourth of the adults were 
priests, monks, nuns or attendants. The church 
took what the military left of the life and 
energies of the people. 

Constantine visited York. Edward IV and 
Richard III were crowned in the Minster. 

Marston Moor, where the cause of Charles I 
nearly met its doom, is in sight of York. 

We stop at the Station Hotel. The railroads 
have been wise enough to build and manage 
good hotels throughout Great Britain and 
Ireland in places where they are needed. Our 
room is over the garden and is very quiet. The 
Minster is within a few minutes' walk and looks 
beautiful from our window. 

We first visit the Guild Hall, which dates from 
1433. One of its prized relics is a bell from an 
Indian temple. The roof of the hall is sup- 
ported by fine oak piUars. We are shown the 
Council Room where Cromwell paid two hun- 
dred thousand pounds for the capture of Charles 



York 123 

I. There are two secret staircases leading to 
the floor above. The chairs are three hundred 
years old. 

The council meets in the council chamber on 
the first Monday of each month. There are six 
wards in the town and each ward elects one 
councilman and two aldermen. There is a chair 
in the room for the wife of the Lord -Mayor, 
who is known as the lady mayoress. He loses 
his title when his term expires, but she is lady 
mayoress for life. 

There is a Cap of Maintenance of which 
York is very proud. It is worn in processions 
by the sword-bearer who, our informant states, 
" 'as the privilege of carrying the sword by the 
pint with the 'ilt h'up in the h'air." Other cities 
have to carry their swords by the hilts with 
points down. There is something involved in 
this concession, we are sure, from the emphatic 
and impressive way that the information was 
given us, but we could not solve it. We thought 
that it would be easier to carry it by the hilt, 
but the man looked so pained by our suggestion 
that we did not press the point. 

York is proud of the fact that she never 
surrendered to Cromwell. It is true that she 
surrendered to Sir Thomas Fairfax, one of 
Cromwell's generals, but he was a native of 
York and that took away some of the sting, and 



124 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



then terms of surrender were made which saved 
the town from the destruction which usually 
followed a Roundhead victory. That is why 
York Minster is about the only church in Eng- 
land whose glass was not broken by order of 
Cromwell. 

The battle of Marston Moor was started by 
the accidental discharge of a loyalist's gun. Both 
sides were awaiting a move on the other's part. 

Fairfax did good service for Cromwell, but 
refused to sit on the jury that condemned the 
king. 

You can buy any amount of Roman coins in 
York, but we were warned to be careful or we 
would "be 'ad with some of it," meaning we 
would be cheated. 

We went down to the basement of the Guild 
Hall, on a level with the waters of the Ouse 
(pronounced ooze), and stood on the ancient city 
pavement where vessels formerly discharged 
their cargoes. Motor boats were numerous, 
covering the surface of the Ouse with oil. 

As we again passed through the main hall our 
attention was called to the fact that some of the 
big oak pillars had moved an inch or more from 
the centers of their bases. That reads as if they 
moved while we were in the basement. As a 
matter of fact it required centuries. 

In York Minster we listen to the organ as 



York 125 

service concludes. The choir marches out, fol- 
lowed by a large congregation. Our attendant 
at the Guild Hall followed us across to the 
Minster and dug up various old coins from dif- 
ferent parts of his person, removed the wrapping 
and admitted that he would part with them for 
a consideration. He received no consideration 
at our hands. 

We climb two hundred and twenty steps to 
the tower, in company with a laughing crowd 
of Yorkshire lads and lasses. Their fun was 
hearty but broad. One jest that never failed 
to receive roars of laughter was the warning 
from the leading cut-up, "Look out below. Ahm 
goan to spit out." 

After a delightful view of the roofs of York 
we return to earth and make two of a party 
which is being shown through by a verger. 
Some objection being made to our taking notes, 
we must depend upon memory for what we saw. 
There is no danger of our forgetting the beau- 
tiful glass and graceful outlines of the Five Sis- 
ters Window, fifty-three and a half feet in 
length and containing more glass than a good 
many large churches. York Minster is the 
highest and next to the longest cathedral in 
England. Winchester is thirty feet longer. 

In the crypt below the church are the remains 
of two previous foundations and a pagan temple. 



126 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

It is a beautiful church inside and out, and 
well worth a longer visit than we gave it. 

The town is full of monuments to British 
soldiers in many wars. There is a large South 
African monument and many memorials to those 
who were killed in the Indian Mutiny. 

The Manor House is now a school for blind 
children. It was a palace of the Stuart kings, 
but it was built by Henry VIII as a residence 
for the Lords President of the North. In the 
old wall there was a gateway made in 1503, 
through which Princess Margaret went out to 
wed James IV of Scotland. One hundred years 
later her great grandson, James VI of Scotland, 
came in at the doorway of the palace as James I 
of England. He set a bad example for future 
tourists by carving his initials on the stone by 
the door. There they are as near as he could 
come to it, "I. R." He was the great I. R. for 
twenty-two years, but, like T. R., handed over 
to his successor several unsolvable problems, and 
his successor lost his head trying to solve them. 

It is quite appropriate that a palace of the 
Stuarts should become an asylum for the blind. 
We saw seventy-five youngsters at dinner, all 
stone blind, but being taught and made as happy 
as their condition would permit. 

The school was founded by Wilberforce. 



York 127 

Near it are very interesting sections of the old 
wall and moat. 

St. Anthony's Hall is now a Blue Coat School 
for Boys. The Black Swan is a famous old inn, 
the headquarters of Dick Turpin, when in York. 
I asked the driver if Turpin was a native of 
York. He replied proudly: 

"No, sir, 'e was 'ung 'ere." 

They find Roman antiquities every time they 
dig up anything in York, and if a tourist digs 
up enough, he can procure them by the dozen. 

The best preserved old gate is Monk Bar. One 
of the city's policemen has his residence over it. 
The association did not strike us as novel. 

Cromwell used the chapter house of the Min- 
ster for his horses. He had a habit of doing 
this, showing that he regarded Catholicism as a 
stable religion. 

We drove past St. Williams's College. In all 
such possessives as St, Williams's, St. James's, 
etc., the accent is strong on the "zuz." This, ac- 
cording to our driver, had been "recently re- 
stored hup to make a conversation for clergy- 
men." 

The Church of Holy Trinity dates from 1236. 
It is in very bad condition. Services are held 
in it once a year, just often enough to hold its 
franchise. 

All Saints' Church has a fine old lantern tower. 



128 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Sir Thomas Herbert's birthplace is pointed out. 
He was born in 1606. That was all that the 
driver could tell us. At home, one encyclopedia 
after another was investigated in trying to locate 
him and learn the reason for his having been 
born, and then the cause of his subsequent ob- 
scurity. At last, in a dusty old tome we found 
the answer to the latter half of the question. 
He wrote travel books. 

Near the shambles, where slaughtering of cat- 
tle is carried on to-day, is the Eagle and Child 
Inn, one of many quaint names. 

Seeing our interest in unusual nomenclature, 
the driver said: 

"If ye loike, sir, Oi'll show ye a name," and 
drove us around near the Old George Hotel and 
pointed out "Whip-ma- Whop-ma Gate," but of- 
fered no solution of the problem of its origin. 

Near it a barber shop displays a sign, "Shave, 
Sir." 

The Hall of the Merchant Adventurers of 
York is eight hundred years old. The chapel 
dates from 141 1. Services are held there once 
a year. Formerly a service was held before each 
sailing and after the return voyage. The wood 
in this chapel is fastened together by pegs. 

The cattle market is a large one and the scene 
of great activity. 
,.^ In York Castle we visit Clifford's Tower. The 



York 129 

cells are covered with the initials, not of prison- 
ers, but of tourists, who should be locked up. The 
place of execution was outside the walls. The 
modern prison is large and apparently well sup- 
ported. There is a section for men, one for 
women and one for debtors, imprisonment for 
debt being another privilege denied woman in 
England. 

The mound on which we stand was raised by 
the Romans. The tower was built by the Con- 
queror in 1069. This section of the city was 
the scene of the infamous massacre of the Jews. 

The old custodian had a playful puppy which 
interfered with our close attention to his narra- 
tive. His narrative was longer than the pup's 
and not so interesting. Now and then, when we 
could do so without seeming to neglect the canine, 
who barked constantly and brought sticks and 
laid them in front of us and said, "Be a sport. 
Throw it for me," we caught fragments of grue- 
some stories that probably grew some with each 
repetition, but our most unfading memory is of 
that shaggy cur trying his best to enjoy himself 
amid most depressing surroundings. 



130 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XI 
The Lake Country 



nrn] E take the four-thirty train on the Lon- 
1 f fl don & North Eastern for Leeds, where 
B ^H we will change to the London & North 
Western for Windermere and the Lake 
Country. Leeds is the center of the woolen cloth 
industry. After leaving Leeds we pass Skipton 
with its castle, which was for five hundred years 
the home of the Cliffords. It was also the tradi- 
tional birthplace of Fair Rosamond, mistress of 
Henry II. 

We change cars at Hellifield and again at Carn- 
forth. There are heavy clouds in the northeast, 
but a clear sunset marks our first evening in the 
Lake District. Three railroads divide the $2.06 
which it costs to travel third class from York to 
Windermere. At Carnforth we have almost an 
hour to study English transportation. Two 
freight trains pass us with bandbox cars and 
spoked wheels. Contrasted with the government- 
owned roads of Holland, England's independent 
systems make a poor showing.. The long lines 



The Lake Country 131 

in the United States would be ashamed of the 
delays and transfers which you encounter on the 
British Isles. Great Britain is at the unhappy 
middle point where the government does not own 
the railroads, and the railroads do not own the 
government, and has none of the advantages of 
either plan. 

At Windermere we take the 'bus for a mile- 
and-a-half drive to Bowness, on the shore of the 
lake, and stay all night at Old England Hotel. 
Our bus driver is a genial soul and friends hail 
him at every corner and jump on and off the 
vehicle ad libitum. One party includes a shaggy 
dog, which is ejected with much difficulty, but is 
not discouraged. His young mistress is inside 
and he tries to get aboard at every stop. Our ride 
is all down hill and over good roads. 

When we reach our room in the hotel we ring 
for the bellboy and ask for particulars regarding 
the ride to Keswick. The first thing we learn 
is that it is pronounced Kessick. B. and the boy 
have a long argument regarding outside seats on 
the Keswick coach. The boy says "They h'are 
h'all h'outside, miss," while B., with both hands, 
is sketching an aerial diagram of the Lake Dis- 
trict, showing that she means the seats on the 
side of the coach next to the Lake — which are 
really inside seats after all, aren't they? 

We passed a house agent's establishment on 



r 



132 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

our way from Windermere. The h in his cellu- 
loid sign had given up the unequal struggle and 
disappeared from the glass, and now he is just 
what he is pronounced to be, a 'ouse agent. 

The coach will start at eight fifty-five in the 
morning. We could boat to Ambleside, four 
miles, and take the coach there, but we are as- 
sured that the view is as good from the coach, 
and we dread any extra handling of the luggage, 
so we book for the coach all the way. 

At seven the next morning the guests are 
awakened by scores of song birds and the cham- 
bermaid. Lake Windermere is spread out be- 
neath our window and a few early risers are row- 
ing upon its placid surface. It has not the 
rugged frame of the lakes of Switzerland and 
northern Italy, but nestles among green hills of 
moderate height, thickly covered with forest. It 
is ten miles long, and at places widens to a mile. 
Its only point of superiority over similar lakes in 
Wisconsin is in the villas and beautiful grounds 
along its shores. Bowness is about midway on 
the eastern bank. Farther north in our ride to-day 
we will see higher hills, which are called moun- 
tains by courtesy. 

Our coach, with four handsome horses, dashes 
up. We are quite proud of our outfit, but our 
feeling of elation is brief. After loading the 
Bowness passengers, we drive to Windermere, 



The Lake Country 133 

gallop up to Riggs' Hotel with a blast of our 
trumpet, pick up some more tourists and ex- 
change our showy horses for a quartette which 
may have more endurance, but certainly possess 
less style. 

However, they cover ground pretty well and 
we soon reach Waterhead, the end of Lake Win- 
dermere, and draw up at Ambleside. We win a 
short race with a rival coach. Our driver is not 
very talkative, except to his horses. If his "Coom 
on my lady noo" fails to produce the desired 
effect, he has a peculiar little chirpy whistle which 
always sets them cantering. The country is get- 
ting wilder and the hills higher. A thunder- 
storm is brewing, ahead of us, but our driver 
figures that we will skirt it without a wetting. 

At Grasmere we smile at the signs of Read, a 
bookseller, and Chew, a butcher, and recall that 
in York there is a printer named Coward. 

Out into the country again, past plodding 
horses with drivers walking beside the heavily 
laden wagons. Here and there a road mender is 
breaking rock. These are always very old men. 
Neat piles of rock are placed at intervals along 
the way, a reserve against future erosion. 

We stop at Wythburn Church, the smallest in 
England, within which is proudly displayed a 
poem by Wordsworth regarding its modest self. 

It is down-hill into Keswick. We travel with 



134 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the brake set for the last mile or so. The horses 
are soft and panting. Later in the year they can 
stand more. 

"See the reek arisin' from that 'un. She's that 
'ot she could cook a steak," said the driver, point- 
ing to one of the leaders. We are traveling, among 
hill-like clouds and cloud-like hills. They are the 
source of much argument. Just as we are sure 
that something is a hill, its edges fray out and it 
floats away before the breeze. 

We laugh at our rain, for we have only had a 
drop or two, as we draw up at Keswick Hotel. 

Skiddaw and the other hills are beautiful in 
the mist. The poets Wordsworth, Coleridge and 
Shelley have left landmarks at convenient inter- 
vals all through the Lake District. As a rule 
their former homes are well back from the road- 
way and sheltered by trees. De Quincey and 
Shelley lived at Keswick. So did Southey. 

The Lake Country is all scenery, and of a 
mild type, but with no actors on the stage. It 
has no history and few traditions. It may be a 
splendid place to rest for a few weeks, but there 
is nothing to attract the sightseer. If the poetry 
of Wordsworth and Shelley appeals to you — 
mind you, I am not disparaging their poetry — 
but if you like it, you will undoubtedly like the 
scenes that inspired a great deal of it. And, of 
course, you will want to linger there. If, on 



The Lake Country 135 

the other hand, you want to see places associated 
with the making of Great Britain, you can safely 
omit the Lake District from your itinerary. It 
is a waste of time to ride in a coach over ite 
uninteresting hills. 

Wordsworth wrote a guide book of this 
region, but it was not a success. In fact, most 
of his first writings were criticized by the 
reviewers. 

Robert Southey had a dreary life at Keswick. 
His wife Edith went crazy, as well she might, 
living in such a quiet spot and having only one 
diversion, listening to her husband's poetry. She 
died and he married again. His second wife was 
Caroline Bowles. She wrote poetry herself and 
Southey undoubtedly received some of his own 
medicine. At any rate, he lost his mind before 
he died. 

Grasmere disputes the claim of Keswick to 
De Quincey. One or the other revived in him his 
appetite for opium, and after visiting both you 
wonder how any narcotic could have been more 
deadening than continued residence in the 
neighborhood. 

Most of the fields which we pass display the 
swaying corpses of defunct crows. These flap- 
ping bodies frighten the living marauders from 
the grain. This is an adaptation of the ancient 
practice of leaving criminals swinging in chains 



136 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

from roadside gibbets as a warning to the 
predatory. 

There are countless gray rocks on the hill- 
sides which on our nearer approach develop legs, 
become sheep and scamper off. 




THE SMALLEST CHURCH IN ENGLAND 



Melrose and Abbots ford 137 



XII 

Melrose and Abbotsford 



PvSIE want to take the train to Penrith from 
■ I fi Keswick at one forty-five. Melrose is 
|y^^ our destination, but they will not book 
us to that town. They are willing to 
book us to Edinburgh with stop-over privileges 
at Melrose, or, as they say, "You can break at 
Melrose if you wish." 

In order to facilitate ( !) matters, it is the 
rule at some stations to close the ticket windows 
five minutes before the time for the departure 
of the train. This gives the last purchaser five 
minutes in which to board the train. But it 
gives the man who arrives four minutes before 
train time no chance. 

En route to Penrith we cross and re-cross the 
Greta, a pretty little tousy, tumbling stream. 
The sides of the hills are marked by irregular 
sutures of stone fence until they resemble skulls. 
These crazy subdivisions indicate various plots 
of ground leased to as many tenants. Sometimes 
a jog is made to save a tree, but whatever the 



138 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

cause, the result is frequent litigation between 
holders. 

We leave Penrith for Carlisle at two forty-five. 
This will give an undesired three hours at Car- 
lisle, but as it is raining we may as well be 
there as anywhere. We have almost reached 
Scotland. 

Like most border towns, Carlisle has seen its 
share of fighting. It has a Roman wall. We 
walk through a drizzling rain to the Cathedral 
where Walter Scott was married. It has been 
restored many times. The fine Norman arches 
in the nave have been crushed out of shape by 
the settling of the piers. Some other things as 
old as Domesday Book are threatened with the 
same fate should the peers be forced to settle. 
A cursory glance at the political situation and 
a few scattered interviews make us willing, how- 
ever, to insure the House of Lords against 
demolition for several generations. There is a 
widespread pessimism, some fear of Germany 
and a good deal of despondency over the extent 
of emigration, but no one seems to want to start 
repairs by dynamiting what they regard as the 
foundation of the empire. 

Service starts in the Cathedral at four, so we 
take a trolley ride to the suburbs. The car is a 
double decker. The fare is two cents. There 
are only two advertisements in the car. One is 



Melrose and Abbots ford 139 

a hand bill of a bazaar for the benefit of a bowl- 
ing .club, and the other is a transparency pasted 
on the glass ventilator, setting forth the merits 
of a "photographic artist." There are no rules 
or notices posted. The front door is locked. 

In Carlisle we saw our first pair of "clogs," 
which are shoes with wooden soles, leather 
uppers, and brass tips to the toes. 

On our coach ride to-day we noticed that the 
pretty little lake of Thirlmere was fenced in and 
the borders bristled with Warnings and Notice 
Boards, all signed by the corporation of Man- 
chester. Inquiry developed the fact that the city 
of Manchester, one hundred miles away, draws 
its water supply from this source. 

We eat dinner at the station and notice a cart 
labeled, "Rugs or pillows on hire." These are 
for night travelers and with only two people in 
the compartment very comfortable berths can 
be made up. 

We get into a Melrose train and for the first 
time encounter a dirty compartment. We trans- 
fer our baggage to a cleaner car and take up 
our journey. At last we are nearing Scotland! 
We are in the country of sheep and heather. 

Melrose is a town of fifteen hundred inhab- 
itants and was founded in the twelfth century. 
It is very small for its age. We cannot wait until 
morning, but go at once to Melrose Abbey to 



I40 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

view the sunset through its western portal. The 
glow of the dying day fills the beautiful old win- 
dow frames with a color richer than any devised 
by the glazier's art. 

We wander out into the church yard and 
study its tombstones, new and old. One epitaph 
seeks to console the survivors with these lines: 

"O think that while you're weeping here 
Her hand a golden harp is stringing." 

As dusk settles around us, scores of wild 
birds circle over our heads and remonstrate 
loudly with us for calling so late. We are so 
impressed with the rich grandeur of the ruin 
and the solemn association of the place that it 
jars upon our sensibilities to see signs forbid- 
ding picnics in the Abbey or church yard. 
Although it is after half-past eight we try for 
a picture of the walls. This and Salisbury 
Cathedral are the most beautiful sights on our 
trip thus far. 

We are stopping at The George, a clean and 
comfortable inn, up-to-date in nothing except the 
tariff, which is nine shillings per day for the 
room alone. When you consider the lack of 
modern conveniences, the rate is very high. Our 
four hours' drive to-morrow will cost us $3.36. 
These figures are given because they may inter- 
est the reader and show him that travel in 



Melrose and Abbotsford 141 

England and Scotland is much more expensive 
than on the continent. 

We are going to drive to Abbotsford and 
Dryburgh (Drybury, please), returning for 
lunch and the two fifty-three train to Edinburgh. 
The people who use the coaches to Abbotsford 
will not pay so much for their ride as we did, 
but will spend an extra day in Melrose, so it is 
as broad as it is long. 

Life is full of paradoxes. Our quietest room 
on the trip thus far was the one in the Station 
Hotel at York. Our noisiest one is in this sleepy 
village of Melrose. The town is so dead still 
that when a man starts to walk down one end 
of our street, w^e can hear him all the way and 
the crescendo of his footsteps becomes positively 
fascinating until he reaches a point beneath our 
window and the sound commences to fade away 
like The Turkish Patrol. 

A musical party went past at some hour of 
the night. It should be no trouble to locate the 
exact time, for there are two striking clocks just 
outside our door, both distinct and each one dis- 
tinctive. They raced all night and I heard them 
every time they struck. The one with the slow, 
clear bell would deliberately sound the hour, fol- 
lowed at varying intervals by the business-like 
staccato of the other, seeming to confirm the 
statement made by its brother. Upon inquiry we 



142 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

find that clocks are a fad of this hotel, there 
being eleven in operation. 

The manageress reports that "the glass is ris- 
ing" when we go down to breakfast. This refers 
to the barometer and should indicate fair weather, 
but it does not. For straight-out-look-you-in- 
the-face prevarication regarding the weather, the 
English barometer has but one rival, the Irish 
jaunting-car driver. 

Nevertheless, we start out for Dryburgh. Our 
driver points out the Cheviot Hills, marking the 
boundary between England and Scotland. A 
tower belonging to Scott's grandfather is visible 
in the distance. Farmers are sowing turnips, 
which are raised for stock feed. It seems rather 
late for sowing. 

"Oh, they come up in no time," explains the 
driver. "If you sow them too early, they shoot." 

Being in favor of a safe and sane turnip, we 
offer no further objection. 

We pass a flock of sheep in charge of a sleepy 
man and a wide-awake collie. Our ride termi- 
nates at a suspension footbridge across the Tweed. 
Not over ten people are allowed on the swaying, 
feeble bridge at one time. 

A man is filling a road sprinkler from the river. 
He drives into mid-stream and uses a ladle. 

It is ten minutes' walk to Dryburgh Abbey, 
where Sir Walter Scott is buried. Much of the 



Melrose and Abbotsford 143 

stately ruin has been carried away. It was used 
as a quarry for one hundred and thirteen years. 
Not only Scott, but his wife, son, daughter, 
daughter-in-law and son-in-law are buried here. 
The last named, Lockhart, was his biographer. 

Dryburgh is a Druid term. It dates from the 
days when the Druids practiced rites (and 
wrongs) on this very ground. Here is an urn 
fourteen hundred years old which once held the 
ashes of their victims. Beside it is a sarcophagus 
much older than the church itself which was 
exhumed in the neighborhood. 

There were several tablets erected to members 
of the Harg family. According to the guide they 
traced back for eight hundred years. I said, 
"That is better than King Edward himself could 
have done." 

"Aye, he was a gude mon, but he was no much 
for family," was the rejoinder. 

One can get an excellent idea of abbey archi- 
tecture at Dryburgh. The ruin is almost leveled 
to a ground plan, but the foundations are com- 
plete. The old cloister is there with a venerable 
yew tree in the center, planted ir^ 11 50 and still 
alive and flourishing. The walls around it are 
in a fair state of preservation. The old cloister 
door has been restored. There is a doorway lead- 
ing up to the dormitory, where there were fifty 
beds. An outline of refectory still shows with 



144 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

kitchen and five wine cellars. The scriptorium 
can be seen where the beautiful illuminated work 
on the Scriptures and other holy writings was 
done. In the Chapter House are the graves of 
the founder of the abbey and his wife. 

We register with a pen which might have be- 
longed to either of them, so carefully is it wiped 
and put away when we are through with it. The 
chair in which we sit is hollowed from a tree 
trunk. 

Out into the sunlight we go again and walk 
past an old juniper tree five hundred years old, 
whose feeble limbs are supported by crutches. 

Before we re-cross the bridge we clamber up 
a hill to look at a memorial to James Thompson, 
the poet, whose odes to the various seasons were 
wondrous creations, not only because of their 
undoubted merit, but because of the difficulty of 
writing about Scotch weather without swearing. 

A rough hewn and weather-worn statue to 
William Wallace is barely visible from the road- 
way as we drive back to Melrose. 

It rains on our way to Abbotsford, and we are 
forced to put up the carriage top. It clears a 
little as we drive up to Sir Walter Scott's resi- 
dence. We leave the carriage and follow a walk 
to what looks suspiciously like a rear entrance. 
The garden is much more beautiful than in 




SIR WALTER SCOTTS TOMB IN DRYBURGII ABBEY 



Melrose and Abbots ford 145 

Scott's day, for the trees are older and the lawn 
more velvety. 

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh. He was 
not distinguished as a scholar, but was by no 
means as stupid as some would have us believe. 
His massive head proves that, not only in por- 
traits, which might be made to lie, but in the piti- 
less death mask in his study at Abbotsford. He 
was a voracious reader. He turned from writ- 
ing poetry to prose because he thought he saw 
signs of deterioration in his verse, and fancied 
that Byron overshadowed him. No one more 
thoroughly pooh-poohed this idea than Byron. 

With Scotch caution he published Waverley 
anonymously for fear of failure. 

His ambition was to be a landed proprietor 
more than to be a writer. He worked to enlarge 
Abbotsford rather than his fame. 

He also wrote a travel book, "Paul's Letters 
to His Kinsfolk," as a result of a visit to Water- 
loo. It is the painful duty of a chronicler to 
give all of the facts. 

He kept extravagant state at Abbotsford. His 
tastes were military, but a shortened limb kept 
him out of the army. A pair of his slippers is 
shown at Abbotsford, one with a higher heel than 
the other, and these tell the story of his lameness. 

When Constable & Co., his publishers, failed, 
he owed them three hundred and fifty thousand 



146 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

dollars on account of advanced royalties. Their 
experience has made publishers more careful 
from that day to this. He was also liable as 
partner with his printers, J. Ballantyne Co., so 
that he faced" a total indebtedness of nearly three- 
quarters of a million dollars, an enormous sum 
for those days. 

For the first time he then threw oflf his tattered 
mantle of disguise and wrote over his own name. 

Scott was made a baronet in 1820. In 1826 
came the financial crash. In the same year his 
wife died. In the ensuing five years he earned 
and paid over to his creditors half a million dol- 
lars, and the remainder was advanced by Robert 
Cadell, his publisher. In 1830 he had a paralytic 
stroke and died in 1832. 

Scott was the father of the historical novel and 
of the practice of paying your debts. He has 
more literary than financial descendants. The 
present century mourns the death of a brave man 
who had all of Scott's rugged honesty and stern 
pride ; whose last years were darkened by mone- 
tary difficulties and saddened by bereavement, 
but who, like Scott, knew no rest until he had 
paid every dollar. That man was our own — nay, 
the world's — Mark Twain. 

The public has been taught, by writers, that 
Scott's publishers were to blame for his reverses. 
The poor publisher is a robber if he succeeds, 



Melrose and Abbotsford 147 

and a criminal if he fails. Scott was equally re- 
sponsible with his publishers and printers in the 
management and neglect of his business. It was 
mismanagement, not fraud, that caused the dis- 
aster, and Scott paid his share in full. He had a 
Scotchman's stubborn sense of integrity and he 
died in following it. 

In his journal he wrote, "I shall never see the 
three score and ten, and shall be summed up at a 
discount. No help for it, and no matter, either." 

His study is very much as he left it, except 
that it is probably in better order. It has a gal- 
lery and a double-decker bookcase all the way 
around the walls. A small staircase leads direct 
from the study to his bedroom. 

In his large library there are twenty thousand 
volumes. There is no doubt regarding the fig- 
ures, as the old man who showed us through re- 
peated them many times. 

The large window gives an excellent view of 
the Tweed. In the center of the room is a table 
of curios, including much gear once belonging 
to the redoubtable Rob Roy. 

The entrance hall is fitted up as an armory. 
There are many rare and costly articles there 
which were given by his admirers. Some are con- 
nected with heroes and heroines of his romances, 
the old lock of the Tolbooth jail of Edinburgh 



148 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

is there, and in the garden a rockery built from 
stones taken from its walls. 

His clothing is shown in a separate case, and 
somehow or other you wish it was not. It is 
hard to associate a halo with a corded black and 
white vest and shepherd's plaid trousers and a 
tall white hat. You feel that Scott, like Dickens, 
was a trifle turbulent in his tastes. 

There are some quaint drawings of Scott's an- 
cestors on the walls. One represents a progeni- 
tor caught in some crime and given his choice 
between the gallows and marrying Muckle Mouth 
Mary. He chose the more lingering punishment, 
and to that union Scott traces. 

Abbotsford was enlarged by the father of the 
present Mrs. Scott. That portion associated with 
Sir Walter is as he lived in it. The remainder is 
modern and at present occupied by tenants. 

The gas fixtures in the old house date from 
Scott's time. He had a gas plant on the prem- 
ises and was a backer and director of the first 
gas company in Edinburgh. 

We return to Melrose and loaf around the 
Abbey. The heart of Robert Bruce is buried 
under the high altar and the entire remains of 
several other people. Bruce rebuilt the abbey 
in the fourteenth century. It cost him a lot of 
money, so his heart is probably in the right 
place. It was destroyed and rebuilt a century 



Edinburgh 149 

later. It is again a ruin, but such a ruin! It 
could not have been more beautiful in its palmiest 
days than it is now in decay. Its east window 
is magnificent and the crown of thorns window 
in the north transept is a sculptor's dream. But 
the pebbles under foot are a tourist's nightmare. 
Just why we should all be made to do penance 
by walking on rough, roily things is not clear. 

Time has softened every angle and blended 
all the colors and here and there has thrown a 
drapery of ivy over a scarred place. Our last 
impression confirms our first one. It is the most 
beautiful ruin we have ever seen. 



150 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XIII 

Edinburgh 



nnnjE go to Edinburgh in an uncarpeted com- 
■ I f J partment, but are still sticking to third 
BJ^Jj class. In Ireland we stuck to third 
class until it stuck to us,~and then we 
changed. The suburbs of Edinburgh are like 
those of any other metropolis and are an argu- 
ment in favor of subways or chloroform for 
incoming travelers. 

We stop at the North British Station Hotel 
and do not regret our choice. Our window looks 
straight down Princes Street to the pinnacle of 
the Scott Monument. Along the same street are 
monuments to Livingstone, Adam Black and 
Christopher North, but Scott's is larger than 
them all, for Scott is the literary patron saint 
of Edinburgh. 

He was born here, for which, of course, he is 
entitled to no credit, but he lived here many years 
and immortalized Edinburgh in song and story. 

The old house at Thirty-nine Castle Street 
was his home for twenty-six years. Try to com- 



Edinburgh 151 

pare that with a modern writer's biography. 
"John Jones (1882-1950) Hved in the third flat 
in this building for nine months and left because 
of an argument with the janitor, moved to a 
down-town hotel, which was demolished to make 
room for a department store," etc. John Jones 
would never be in any locality for twenty-six 
years until he moved to the cemetery. 

The window catch in Scott's study on Castle 
Street was his invention. 

We drive over to the Castle. It is after five 
o'clock and the rooms are closed, but we are 
shown through the premises. There are seven 
gates which would have to be stormed before a 
besieger could reach the real castle. All of these 
are on the east. The other three sides of the 
castle are sheer rock, four hundred and thirty 
feet high and almost perpendicular. 

We walk past the state prison where Argyle 
was confined in 1685 and beheaded for his stub- 
born loyalty to his king. The ninth duke was 
the son-in-law of Victoria and as Marquis of 
Lome was governor-general of Canada. These 
were all of the Campbell clan. 

The Castle was taken in 13 12 by climbing the 
western rock, but this is not likely ever to occur 
again. The Royal Scots are in garrison now. 
Their kilts have been made into plaid trousers. 

St. Margaret's Chapel in the Castle is the 



152 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



oldest building in Edinburgh (iioo). In front 
of it is Mons Meg, a huge cannon once supposed 
to have come from the foundries of Mons, but 
now admitted to be of Scotch origin. 

From the Half Moon Battery a gun is fired 
at one o'clock each afternoon by electrical 
connection with Calton Hill Observatory. 

Near the battery is a burial ground for regi- 
mental dogs. A large number of these faithful 
animals are buried there, each with a gravestone 
at its head. 

We cannot get into the death chamber of 
Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
to-day. We will return to-morrow to visit it and 
the room where James VI of Scotland, after- 
wards James I of England, was born in 1566. 

A shower drives us to our carriage and we 
are in turn driven to the shopping district. We 
made little progress in our efforts to buy some 
engravings of Scott. We completely failed to 
interest one old shop-keeper in our wants. He 
was evasive and inattentive. Finally when B, 
insisted on a direct answer he asked us to call 
to-morrow, as it was closing time. In the mean- 
while he would think over what he had. One 
of his shelves was marked "Cheap Theology." 
The serious predominates in Edinburgh. There 
is a Bible in our hotel room. It is an excellent 



Edinburgh 153 



atmosphere for the visiting missionaries who are 
here from all over the world this week. 

Moving pictures of the King's funeral are 
being shown in Queen's Hall by Viscount 
Mountmorres. That moves the cinematograph 
up a peg in the social system, what? 

At Melrose we found that the Thursday half 
holiday is almost as complete a barrier to sight 
seeing as the Sabbath observance. Fortunately, 
we required nothing at Melrose ; but our inform- 
ant, albeit he was carrying golf sticks and on his 
way to a game, said that if we wanted anything 
in the drug line he would open up. 

The old streets of Edinburgh resemble those 
of Naples in the prodigality of laundry displayed 
from the windows of the tenements. Just who 
wears the laundered clothes is not evident. 

In line with these scattering dissertations we 
find a memorandum, "No fruit in England," to 
which broad assertion please note one delightful 
exception, strawberries. The apples come from 
Australia and the apricots, to judge from the 
price, from Golconda. The grapes are sour and 
out of reach of the ordinary pocketbook. The 
pastry course at dinner is some sort of tart or 
stewed fruit, usually rhubarb or gooseberry. 
Tarts probably caused the Pilgrim Fathers to 
leave home and invent pie. 

Although it is the middle of June our hotel 



154 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

room is so cold that we ask to be transferred to 
another floor. 

There are many statues in Edinburgh, almost 
as many as in Dublin. There are statues of 
statesmen, kings, and princes. There is a very 
large monument to Melville, one time chancellor 
of the exchequer, who was accused of grafting 
and acquitted. His friends took this means, our 
driver informed us, pointing to the towering 
statue, to raise him above suspicion. 

In the Grassmarket was the scene of the 
Porteous Riots in 1736 and right in the center 
thereof Jack Porteous was hanged by a mob 
after having been reprieved by the king. Scott's 
"Heart of Midlothian" will give you all the 
details and you can find local color for the scene 
right in the same spot to-day, for it is a sullen, 
hungry looking crowd that is hanging about the 
central watering trough. 

In Greyfriars' churchyard the National Cove- 
nant was signed in 1638 and many covenanters 
lie buried there. The Martyrs' Monument com- 
memorates eighteen thousand dead between 1661 
and 1688, of whom "an hundred were execute at 
Edinburgh." The most of them lie here. 

We pass the University, founded by James VI 
in 1582. It is now one of the world's great 
schools and enrolls more than three thousand 
students annually. 




AN OLD BOOKSELLER 



Edinburgh 155 

Lord Darnley was an alumnus of this institu- 
tion. He married Mary, Queen of Scots. 
Finding that she had married beneath her, Mary 
tried to raise Darnley to a higher station. 
Unfortunately she used gunpowder. The actual 
deed was attributed to the Earl of Bothwell. 
Mary rebuked this idle gossip by marrying the 
Earl three months after the explosion. 

Darnley was the father of James I and the 
tendency of that monarch to "go to pieces" when 
excited may be attributed to heredity. 

The site of Scott's birthplace is on Chambers 
Street. Near it on High Street is a statue to 
the first Duke of Buccleugh. 

We go into St. Giles' Cathedral, rich in its 
somber coloring. The most-sought-for and 
hardest-to-find memorial in the church is the one 
to Robert Louis Stevenson, showing him in a 
reclining position and with his beautiful prayer 
printed above. 

In front of Parliament House is an equestrian 
statue of Charles H. Near it is a stone supposed 
to mark the grave of John Knox. 

We enter the Parliament House and smile 
inwardly at the bewigged solicitors pacing up 
and down the large hall. Some are quite youth- 
ful and their faces contrast strikingly with their 
gray headgear. 

Passing across this room, we descend to the 



156 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

library. Here are half a million volumes and 
many rare manuscripts. A sitting figure of Sir 
Walter Scott adorns the end of the room. We 
look through the glass at the manuscript of 
Waverley and the first printed Bible. 

We are interested in a very human document, 
a letter written by Robert Burns in 1790 to 
square himself for an alleged failure in the 
discharge of his duty as exciseman. It reads : 

"I never found anybody but the lady who I 

know is not mistress of Keys And one 

of the times it would have rejoiced all Hell to 
have seen her so drunk. . * ... I know the gen- 
tleman's ways are like the grace of G past 

all comprehension I shall be peculiarly 

unfortunate if my character shall fall a sacrifice 
to the dark maneovres of a smuggler. 
I am, Sir, 

Your obliged and obedient humble serv 
Robt. Burns." 
Sunday even. 

"I send you some rhymes I have just finished 
which tickle my fancy a little." 

Crafty Bobby doubtless knew that the charm 
of his poetry would be more effective than the 
eloquence of his plea. 

Burns may have been a ploughman and a bar- 
room frequenter, but no trace of the clodhopper 
and no palsy of the tippler shows in his pen- 



Edinburgh 157 

manship. It is remarkably beautiful and legible. 

In contrast thereto is a letter from Elizabeth, 
dated June 7, i5;7i, with a signature like a half 
dozen whip lashes. 

In the same case is a child's letter, written by 
the boy Duke of York, afterwards the ill-fated 
Charles I, to James VI, his father. 



"Sweete Father : i learned to decline substan- 
tiatives and adjectives give me your blessing i 
thank you for my best man. 

your loving sone 

York." 



There was also a commission from Bonnie 
Prince Charlie, dated 1745, signed C. P. R. 
(Prince Regent). 

We bought a few old prints in a bookshop 
which occupies the ground floor of John Knox's 
residence and drove from the Canongate past 
Adam Smith's house. A small boy near by turned 
our hair gray by making cart-wheels directly 
under our horse's nose and then demanded pay- 
ment. In order to stop the performance we 
tossed him a penny, which some less acrobatic but 
more alert youngster captured and we left them 
arguing the matter. 

There are many "Closes" in the old town, blind 
alleys or courtyards. Within White Horse Close 



158 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

was the hotel patronized by Bonnie Prince 
Charlie. 

Holyrood Palace is in the hands of the house 
cleaners, so we are unable to visit the rooms of 
Mary, Queen of Scots. 

In front of us is King's Park. It is as bare of 
trees as a roof garden. Within it is King Ar- 
thur's Seat, eight hundred feet above the city. 

Edward VII went to school at the Royal High 
School in Edinburgh. 

In the Old Calton Burial Ground is a statue 
of Abraham Lincoln and a memorial to the Scots 
who fell in the American Civil War. 

Mourning garb has practically disappeared 
since we reached Scotland. Some who are ap- 
parently of the higher classes are in black, but 
the practice is not so universal as in London. The 
Scotch are loyal but thrifty. 

We have made a culinary discovery. The dark 
green stuff that looks like spinach and tastes 
like maple leaves, is kale, a species of cabbage. 
The wafer which was served with the sherbet 
surprised me by having a distinct flavor. I com- 
mented thereon to B. and she said, "Why, you 
have eaten one of my prettiest post cards." 

We make another visit to the Castle, and this 
time penetrate to some of the rooms. We stand 
in the tiny room where James VI was born and 
look out of the narrow window, down more than 



Edinburgh 159 

four hundred feet, where the baby was lowered 
in a basket to be hustled over to a church and 
baptized into the Roman Catholic faith. 

In another room the crown jewels of Scotland 
repose in a glass case guarded by one sleepy 
sentinel. 

We drive to the top of Calton Hill, where 
stands "the disgrace of Edinburgh." It wa5 
started as a Waterloo memorial. It ended as a 
memorial Waterloo. Twelve columns were 
erected at a cost of five thousand dollars each, 
and then the thrifty Scot quit putting up and 
there it stands. 

The Nelson monument is surmounted by a 
time ball, and in a manner pays its way, for the 
ball drops every day at one o'clock. 

There is a good view of Leith, the Firth of 
Forth, and the island of Inchkeith from the top 
of Calton Hill. 

Returning to the hotel we dismiss the carriage 
and go via tram to Dean Street Bridge, over the 
sides of which we have a beautiful view of the 
Waters of Leith, one hundred and five feet belov»^ 
us in a deep gorge. 

A pathetic figure in stone stands at the north 
end of the bridge a little below the street level. 
It represents a bare-footed sailor gazing at the 
setting sun. There is a rugged faithfulness in 
the sculpture that is thoroughly Scotch. We do 



i6o Three Weeks in the British Isles 

not know its message, but it is Hke a Bonnie Brier 
Bush story carved in stone. 

We shop awhile for cairngorm jewelry. Cairn- 
gorm makes ideal souvenirs for friends. It is 
thoroughly characteristic of Scotland, and at the 
same time you surrender it so cheerfully when 
you reach home. For personal adornment we 
prefer something, which has sufficient intrinsic 
beauty to be its own warraftt for wearing and 
does not need explanation. Like bagpipe music, 
cairngorm is not pretty, but is hallowed by asso- 
ciations. The Scotchman is proud of his bravery 
and independence, but there are several things, 
like thistles, cairngorm and bagpipes, that he 
bravely defends and that could be left out all 
night with safety in Naples. 

We went to the Royal Lyceum Theater in the 
evening and saw a dramatization of Scott's "Rob 
Roy." It was a most fortunate impulse that 
made us choose the drama rather than the sort 
of vaudeville they have in Scotland. It is hard 
to describe the added interest it gives to a play 
when you see it on its native heath. To-morrow 
we will drive over much of the country made 
unsafe by Rob Roy during his lifetime, and that 
lends a thrill to incidents in the play, which did 
not lack for thrills before. 

All praise must be given to the sincerity of 
the acting. The term "reverent" may seem un- 




STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN— EDINBUUGII 



Edinburgh i6i 

usual in this application, but that is the only word 
which will describe the attitude of the actors to 
the incidents of the play and to the Scottish 
tongue. As was to be expected, the audience 
caught many bits of humor that were too much 
in the vernacular for our untutored ears. 

The part of Bailie Nicol Jarvie was made the 
leading comedy role, but Rob Roy and his faith- 
ful Dugal were magnificently acted. The latter, as 
a more than half-savage Highlander, was a faith- 
ful portrayal. There was no mincing matters in 
the way of breekless kilts and the bagpipes were 
genuine to the point of distraction. A sword 
dance was given with the technique and finish 
that such an audience demanded. 

The one laughable thing to us, though we were 
careful not to laugh, was the introduction of bal- 
lads on the slightest provocation. The leading 
man, lost in the woods between Aberfoyle and 
Glasgow, and urged by the imperative necessity 
for speed, stopped long enough to render a tenor 
solo and respond to an encore. The lovers, torn 
from each other's arms by fate and Scotch poli- 
tics, did a very neat duet as the stage was dark- 
ened. Our sense of propriety, fortified by our 
sense of self-protection, kept us from showing 
any amusement. 



i62 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XIV 

The Trossachs 



HSHIE will reach Oban Saturday evening. 
If fj That means that we will remain there 
Bj^B until Monday morning, for not a wheel 
turns in Scotland on Sunday, either of 
locomotive or steamboat. Our long-cherished 
dream of a visit to the islands of lona and Staffa 
will not be realized this trip. Fingal's Cave is 
on the latter island and is as wonderful in its 
formation as the Giant's Causeway. So we have 
checked our adjectives through to Portrush and 
will use them in describing the Causeway. 

We will have wasted two days thus far in 
our trip and those who follow in our footsteps 
can profitably omit the English Lake District and 
Oban, going direct from Inversnaid to Glasgow. 

As stated before, there is nothing in the 
Cumberland lakes to see and nothing historical 
to hallow it. Its scenery will not cost you a 
gasp. It is good sheep pasture, every foot of 
it. To the readers of the lake poets and Mrs. 



The TrossAclis 163 



Hemans it is hallowed ground, with a hill apiece 
for each surviving devotee. 

The Scotch are distressingly honest. I had 
an old handkerchief which had been laundered 
artfully with its best side out. When I had 
unfolded its secret nature, I tried to leave it at 
Melrose. I threw it under the washstand. After 
breakfast I found it re-folded as neatly as its 
tattered condition would permit and gracefully 
draping the towel rack. I concealed it in a 
dresser drawer. At noon when we returned 
from Dryburgh Abbey it greeted me from the 
top of a suit case. I took it to the bath room, 
but by this time the maid knew it so well that 
when we returned from Abbotsford it was hang- 
ing on a hook on the door. I waited until our 
bill was paid, slipped back to the room and threw 
it under the bed and fled. Unless they trace us 
and mail it, I believe we are rid of it. 

English cookery is absolutely unseasoned. You 
can take that statement as we have been taking 
our food, without a grain of salt. 

We leave by the seven forty-five train for 
Stirling on our way to the Trossachs. The word 
means rough, wild country. We will reach 
Aberfoyle at nine forty-six and take a coach 
from there. It was at the clachan of Aberfoyle 
that Rob Roy met Francis Osbaldistone in 
Scott's book. 



164 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Our hotel is splendidly located both as regards 
the city of Edinburgh and the railroad. We 
would urge every one to patronize these station 
hotels, especially in Scotland and Ireland. But 
be sure that it is a railway hotel. Occasionally 
an inferior inn a mile from the depot will call 
itself "Railway Hotel." 

Our hotel in the large city of Edinburgh was 
locked when we returned from the theater at 
ten forty-five last night. We rang the bell and 
were admitted by the porter. 

We change cars for Stirling at Dunfermline. 
After we have all done so, the guard and the 
station master have a heated argument on the 
subject, which finally results in their both run- 
ning the full length of the train, shouting, 
"Change for Stirling." You cannot . expect a 
stranger to be certain on transportation matters 
when they are a subject of debate among the 
railroad employees. 

Stirling Castle, stands on a high rock and 
commands the narrow stretch of Scotland be- 
tween Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Firths of 
Forth and Clyde are scarcely forty miles apart 
at this point. The castle was built by James V, 
father of Mary, Queen of Scots. She was 
crowned here when nine months old, in 1543. 
Mary's son, James VI, he who was lowered in a 
basket, was crowned at thirteen months. John 



The Trossachs 165 



Knox preached the latter's coronation sermon. 
It is to be hoped that the infant was duly im- 
pressed, but judging by later events he was not. 
After James VI became James I of England, 
he moved to Windsor, since which time Stirling 
has housed no big guns except cannon. 

The old church is occupied by rival Presby- 
terian congregations, wliich meet at the same 
hour and worship on a sort of party line to 
heaven. 

James II of Scotland assassinated Douglas in 
the castle in 1452 after a dinner to which he 
had invited the earl. Many Scotchmen criticize 
the king for wasting a good dinner, holding that 
the killing might just as well have been done 
before the eating. 

We change cars at Stirling for Aberfoyle. 
The Aberfoyle train is due to leave at nine ten, 
and although it is made up and ready it does 
not pull out until nine fifty-five. The sun comes 
out as much as it ever does in Scotland and 
matters look real hopeful as we clamber up the 
ladder to our seats on the coach at Aberfoyle. 

The old clachan of Rob Roy's days is a mass 
of ruins. The country is beautiful and the 
yellow broom colors every field. Below is the 
river Forth. This is not the river Rob swam in 
escaping from his captors. He could have 
jumped this river. Near here is the scene of 



l66 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Rob Roy's fight and the cave where he concealed 
himself. 

All of this country through which we will 
drive to-day was familiar to the Highland 
chieftain. Rob Roy was either a robber or a 
very much wronged man, depending on the 
point of view. He inherited a lot of wrongs and 
was not of a temperament to arbitrate his 
troubles. Still his side of the story has a good 
deal of the same tenor as the life of the James 
Boys, by one of them. There was undoubtedly 
the cruelty of frightened tyranny on one hand 
and the reckless reprisal of desperate bravery on 
the other. 

At any rate the Duke of Montrose owns the 
property now, and he is so determined to wipe 
out useless slaughter in his domains that he has 
forbidden automobiles the right to enter therein. 
This ruling followed a fatal accident about a 
year ago, when a horse became frightened at a 
motor car. 

Scott's house is at Aberfoyle, where he lived 
while writing. "Rob Roy." The hills hereabout 
are full of slate. We passed several quarries. 

We have not seen a fly since leaving New 
York. A flock of gnats has accompanied us since 
quitting Aberfoyle like sea-gulls hovering about 
an ocean liner. They are very well mannered in- 
sects and leave the passenger alone to perch all 



The Trossachs 167 



over our perspiring driver. Evidently, hot Scotch 
is their favorite tipple. 

We get an intoxicating view of Loch Drunkie 
and Ben Venue as we drive along. The trees 
grow out of mossy rocks, where there is not a 
sign of soil. 

The telephone and telegraph wires in this wild 
country have small pieces of wood dangling, from 
them. So many grouse were injured by flying 
against the wires that the tender-hearted sports- 
men hung up these warning boards. Now the 
grouse live until they die a natural death. The 
natural death for grouse in this region is a gun- 
shot wound. 

At the foot of Ben Venue we embark on the 
little steamer, "Sir Walter Scott," on the placid 
waters of Loch Katrine. Once afloat, Baedeker 
is put away and "The Lady of the Lake" is 
hauled out. The steamer paddles past Ellen's 
Isle, a very small isle for such a large story. Ben 
Venue is behind us on the receding shore. Ben 
Lomond looms large on our right. 

As we try to study Scott's poem several people 
shove little tin arks under our noses. These are 
labeled Royal National Life Boat Institution. We 
drop in our largest and least valuable coin to get 
rid of the solicitors and investigate afterwards. 
We find it is a mission for sailors and other ne'er- 
do-weels, who, having expended their substance, 



1 68 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

are taken care of by these good ladies between 
sprees. Poor Jack is commiserated for a lot of 
practices and habits that would put a mere land- 
lubber in the lock-up. 

Coach drivers and steamboat captains roll out 
Scott by the yard as they point out the crag where 
perished the gallant gray horse of James V — 

"Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day 
That cost thy life, my gallant gray," 

but our sympathies and admiration are all with 
the stag as we murmur 

"Vain was the chase and lost the day, 
God bless the stag that got away." 

The poem is better than a guide book. 

"High on the south, huge Ben Venue 
Down on the lake in masses threw 

Crags, knolls and mounds, confusedly hurl'd 
The fragments of an earlier world. 

While on the north, through middle air 
Ben An heaved high his forehead bare." 

You feel sure that Sir Walter, with all of his 
fondness for detail, if writing to-day, would cer- 
tainly add 

"And if your boat be not delayed, 
You'll catch the coach for Inversnaid." 



The Trossachs 169 



There are patches of snow on the mountain 
tops, not very numerous nor very large, and they 
lend a tang to the air. 

■At Stronachlachar, coaches meet the boat and 
convey its passengers five and a half miles to 
Inversnaid. Americans are warned against at- 
tempting to pronounce the name of Stronach- 
lachar. To givQ proper clucks and gutturals you 
must have an ancestry that has slept in "plaidies" 
and dusted the hoarfrost from its neck and throat 
through many generations. 

The trip is made realistic by pipers planted 
at regular intervals along the line of march and 
blowing lustily. With Scotch canniness, these 
musicians are placed at the bottom of steep 
grades, and the struggle the poor horses make 
in endeavoring to get away from the pipers 
would excite the pity of anyone. 

Loch Lomond is beautifully framed in green 
hills, topped by fleecy clouds and delicately veiled 
in a soft haze. 

The lunch at Inversnaid is badly handled both 
from the standpoint of the furious hotel manager 
and the famished tourist. It is advisable to eat 
on the boat, except for the fact that you thereby 
miss the scenery. 

We are hustled to the steamer, with our food 
unmasticated in a manner that would have scan- 
dalized Horace Fletcher, and put aboard, without 



170 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

being asked any questions as to our destination, 
which is Ardlui. After riding much longer than 
the schedule provides for, we awake to the fact 
that the boat is going in the wrong direction. 
The purser chides us for our mistake, and sells 
us return tickets for seventy-two cents each. 
The first stop is Luss, where we wait for the 
next steamer to Ardlui. There is a charge of 
three cents each for pier dues while waiting for 
the boat. Tiring of the planks, we go up into 
the town. There is another charge of two cents 
each to get back to the pier. Shades of Rob Roy ! 

Always inquire at every opportunity regarding 
boats or trains. Your information will be wrong 
three times out of ten, but if you try to guess, 
you will miss it five times in the same number; 
so the odds are in favor of making the inquiry. 

The above wisdom cost us about ninety cents 
each to acquire. You may have it for nothing 
and probably will not use it. 

Luss is a popular place for picnics, and most 
of the steamers from the direction of Glasgow 
are filled with working people on a holiday. 
Many parties are spreading tablecloths on the 
pebbly beach of Loch Lomond, but there is no 
adult bathing and only a few children wading. 
There are no bathhouses, so evidently the clear, 
placid waters of the lake are used only for 
floating boats. 



The Trossachs 171 



The return steamer to Ardlui has two or three 
hundred passengers in the usual divided state of 
mind as to the question of enjoyment. There are 
a great many children, and the parents are too 
tired to check them in their freedom. In fact, 
at the landing places the children are the last 
items looked after in discharging cargo. 

Father and mother assemble their heavy lug- 
gage first, then collect parcels, shawls and um- 
brellas, and finally ask each other, "Where's 
John?" or "Where's Mary?" They usually sort 
out their own offspring just as the boat ties up. 

Each landing witnesses an exchange of twenty 
or more passengers. 

There is something rather trying about their 
petty fees, pier charges and the like. The aggre- 
gate sum is small, but the repetition is irksome. 
They amputate a shilling one penny at a time, 
like the merciful surgeon who cut off the man's 
arm a little at each operation. 

But all of these human ingredients cannot 
alter the fact that Loch Lomond is beautiful. 
The air is tonic, the sun shines brightly, and the 
dark water ripples away from our bow in placid 
splendor. 

The boat touches at Inversnaid, which we left 
an hour and a half before, but we feel that the 
time has been spent more pleasantly afloat than 
ashore. We move across the lake, this time in 



172 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the proper direction, and shortly disembark at 
Ardlui. 

The walk to the hotel is through half a mile 
of heather and gorse. The heather is not yet 
in bloom in Scotland, with the exception of the 
small bell heather. 

When we reach the hotel we order a six 
o'clock tea, and take a five-minute walk down 
the road and lie on the grass for nearly an hour. 
It is our only day of summer weather during the 
trip. 

The supper is excellent at the little hotel at the 
foot of a big mountain and on the shore of Loch 
Lomond. We make the acquaintance of a charm- 
ing French couple who understand every word 
we speak, except when we talk French. 



Oban 173 



XV 
Oban 



m 



EAVING Ardlui in the evening, the train 
soon rises above the sunset, after which 
it threads the sun's rays in and out 
between and behind mountains all the 
way to Crianlarigh. It rises several hundred 
feet above the valley, and there is a hint of 
Switzerland in the scene, but only a hint. 

At Crianlarigh there is a change of railroads, 
and, there being no porters in sight, we struggle 
along for a quarter of a mile with our luggage. 
We commence to feel that possibly we have not 
been as generous as we should have been with 
the overworked porters, and each succeeding step 
deepens the impression. 

The ride to Oban takes an hour and a half. 
We pass through beautiful but uncultivated moor- 
land. There is a lack of sheep, although we are 
among the Grampian Hills, where Norval's 
father fed his flocks. 

The sun is setting clear, but there is that 
perpetual mist in the valleys. Our companion 



174 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

is an old Scotch woman who evidently is not 
an experienced traveler. She sits up very straight 
and studies the sign-boards at the stations. 
Finally she gets her packages in her lap twenty 
minutes before we reach her destination, and 
waits, anxious for the train to stop. 

The road skirts the north end of Loch Awe 
and we are treated to a gorgeous Oban sunset. 
These sunsets are one of the advertised features 
of the place, but we are so fortunate as not to 
have read the press notices, and the grandeur 
has all of the added force of the unexpected. 

Our hotel room at Oban overlooks the Firth 
of Lome. The sun is setting behind the islands 
of Kerrera, which land-lock this beautiful bay, 
making it one of the finest harbors in the world. 
A British battleship, the "Cumberland," is an- 
chored in the offing. As we sit and watch old 
Sol with his paint brush touching up the sunset 
here and there, the soft twang of a zither floats in 
on the breeze. If we must loaf a whole day, 
surely we have landed at the right spot. 

Letters are written and books are read until 
ten fifteen without the aid of artificial light. 

There was one pleasant little incident in our 
trip, which showed so plainly the universal 
human nature that we must relate it, however 
tame it may prove in the telling. 

At Dalmally, a rather rough-looking working- 



Oban 175 

man, pipe in mouth, put his head in at the car 
window. There were two couples besides our- 
selves in the compartment, which was a smoker. 
A look of dismay crossed the faces of the ladies. 
The man opened the door and, stooping over, 
picked up the dearest little red-cheeked, blue- 
eyed lassie, about two years old, and placed her 
in one of the vacant seats. He left her there 
alone while he conversed with some companions 
on the platform. He could not have selected a 
better bearer for his flag of truce, although I am 
sure that he had no idea of being diplomatic nor 
of any necessity for dipjomacy. The little one 
changed the whole situation. She smiled at each 
of us confidently. One lady handed her a post- 
card. B. hauled out some chocolate from our 
suit case, and by the time the father entered we 
were all friends. He knocked the ashes from his 
pipe and we visited together until the train 
reached Oban. 

There are some odd "ruins" back of the town 
that probably will not be here when you come to 
Oban. One is a circular structure whose erec- 
tion was begun by an eccentric banking agent 
who died before completing it, a.id left nothing 
in his will to indicate his purpose or wherewith 
to finish it. 

Another ruin is th^. unfinished wall of a hydro 



176 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

hotel which ran out of funds. The latter is now 
being demolished and carted away. 

Our hotel has a lift, and as it was only a little 
after ten and not dark, I concluded to walk about 
the streets before retiring. I patiently pushed 
the button and waited at the lift door. No re- 
sponse. A passing maid said : "I am going down 
stairs. I will tell him." Presently the car 
ascended. I said to the boy, "Is the bell out of 
order ?" He replied, "Naw, sir ; it's bruck," with 
a rich roll of the "r" that marks the briefest 
speech of the Highlander. 

The shops are open, and after making a few 
purchases I return to the room and write for 
awhile. The lights are lit on the ships in the 
harbor. The new moon gives the water that 
heavenly, silvery tint which is really opalescent, 
although we dislike the hackneyed phrase. 
Objects a block away are clearly discernible, but 
writing grows difficult. We have that disagree- 
able sleepy feeling that is in ill accord with the 
twilight outside. We finally give up the fight 
with the sand man, pull down the double shades, 
close the inside shutters, and retire. 

In the morning we look out of our window 
and discover a man in kilties. He is a guest of 
the hotel, and it is evident from the considera- 
tion shown him that he is a man of wealth and 
position. So his lack of trousers is not a matter 



Oban 177 

of necessity, but taste — perhaps we should say 
form. At any rate, he walks about the town, 
bare-headed and bare-legged, and comes to 
breakfast that way and unashamed. He even 
has a dirk handle protruding from his stocking, 
but we are assured that it is bladeless and worn 
only as jewelry. 

There is some quaint pottery on sale in Oban. 
The mottoes thereon are so expressive of Scotch 
hospitality and taciturnity that we quote a few: 

"Tak yer wull o' the tea." 
"Dinna let yer modesty wrang ye." 
"Keep yer braith ta cule yer parritch." 

The mist is condensing and retreating before 
the advance of day. The hilltops of dark purple 
gradually emerge from their cotton wrappings, 
and these melt into the waters of the Firth. The 
more distant mountains of Mull appear back of 
Kerrera. These did not exist to our eyes last 
night. The nearer heights are swept clean of 
clouds and stand out in rugged green. The tide 
is receding and uncovering wide stretches of 
pebble. 

We investigate the billiard table. It is six by 
twelve, and has six pockets. The balls are 
smaller than we are accustomed to. There are 
emergency cues and bridges ten feet in length. 



178 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

You use either three balls or sixteen. You count 
by making "cannons" (caroms) or by "potting" 
the balls. The marker is an ingenious mechan- 
ism, a cross between an adding machine, a bell 
punch and a gas meter. There is no charge for 
the use of the table by guests. We find that we 
may play on Sunday if we desire, but infer that 
"it is not done." 

The black patches in the heather show that 
they still burn the old plants, as they have for 
centuries, to give the sheep access to the younger 
and more tender shoots. 

We drive out past the ivy-covered ruins of 
DunoUy Castle to the sands of Glenavan. This 
is a very pretty bathing beach. Only one bather 
is braving the chill waters. Back of the beach 
is the Oban golf course, an excellent one, which 
visitors may play over for twenty-four cents a 
day or eighty-four cents a week. 

Our drive lasts an hour, after which we come 
in; the sun comes out, and we read "The Lady 
of the Lake." The drive showed us what a 
labyrinth of islands we will pick our way through 
on our boat ride to Glasgow to-morrow. 

Oban's single business street is filled with 
sailors and marines from the Cumberland, and 
they are as orderly and fine looking a set of men 
as one could desire. 

The women of Scotland, so far as observed, 



Oban 179 

are not pretty, shapely or well dressed. They 
look healthy, and are of the severest Presbyterian 
morality ; but if "virtue alone is happiness below," 
it is happiness below the surface, for it certainly 
does not show in their sad countenances. The 
children are preternaturally solemn. If you in- 
quire as to their bodily welfare, they will say 
"Fine" as seriously as a bunch of little owlets. 
If you merely smile at them, they make no re- 
sponse, oral or facial, but look puzzled. 

Room doors are left unlocked in Oban, but 
that is not an unusual custom in England and 
Scotland. We asked the maid for a key, but she 
said, "You should na lock yer door, or we canna 
get in." 

Dinner is at eight, and the sun stays up nearly 
an hour longer, and then comes that intermin- 
able twilight. The boats in the harbor are like 
stage settings, so smooth is the water. The 
islands are at varying distances, and each inter- 
val of space marks a difiference in the density 
of the mist, a delicate shading and a grandeur 
of plan not transferable to canvas and not to be 
described in words. 

It looks just now as if the component parts 
of that wondrous blend, an Oban sunset, were 
being assembled. Sea gulls by the hundred make 
the only motion in the picture. Even the smoke 



i8o Three Weeks in the British Isles 

from our to-morrow's steamer hangs Hke a black 
drape from the funnel top. 

Made nervous by the unwonted calm of a 
Scotch Sabbath, I go down to look at the silent 
street. Three attendants rise noiselessly to a 
standing position from dark corners of the hall, 
summoned by my presence from the shadows 
like the clansmen of Roderick Dhu. A few 
people walk slowly and quietly up and down the 
street. I thrust both hands into my trousers' 
pockets and start to whistle. Weak as was the 
note produced, it brought a glare from a man 
sitting on a bench half a block away. I tiptoe 
back to our room and resume my reading. 

How did Burns manage to be such a cut-up ; or 
were his pranks like my whistle, only tumultuous 
because of the contrasting surroundings ? 

At any rate, forced to read, I glean this morsel 
of wisdom from a letter of Scott, dated Novem- 
ber 3, 1812, to his printer, James Ballantyne : 

"Be interesting; do the thing well and the 
only difference will be, that people will like 
what they never liked before and will like it 
so much the better for the novelty of their 
feelings toward it. Dulness and tameness are 
the only irreparable faults." 

Apparently, in making the mixture for to- 
night's sunset, too much thickening in the way 



Oban i8i 

of cloud was added, for the beautiful heliorama 
of last night was not repeated. B. attributes 
the gray evening and the total absence of color 
to the fact that it is Sunday. Perhaps she is 
right, and if the Sabbath were entirely in Scotch 
hands there would be no doubt of it. There are 
those to whom the bright coloring of His flowers 
are at irreconcilable variance with their concep- 
tion of His nature. 

But there, we must not let the local atmosphere 
start us to preaching. 

We are up at six thirty and take the eight 
twenty boat for Glasgow. This means another 
day of rest, for it will be six o'clock when we 
tie up in the Clyde River this evening. 

Our boat is the "Grenadier," and she has a 
convoy of gulls ample enough for an ocean liner. 
Hundreds of them are screaming about our head 
or fighting for the morsels of food thrown into 
the water. 

We move off slowly, as must needs be in this 
group of islands, piled up in hills all around us. 
They are carpeted with green, with here and 
there a scar of rock which has not yet been 
covered with a new skin of turf. 

The little town of Easdale dozes at the base of 
a castle-like rock. The breakwater which pro- 
tects the point of the tiny island is of uncemented 
stones standing on edge. We pick up two or 



i82 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

three passengers and move on. You could throw 
a stone from one island to another, and if you are 
a woman and missed the island aimed at, the 
chances are that you would hit a neighboring, 
one. 

It is so cold that we go below and watch 
through the windows the fishermen putting out 
long nets. Islands a mile away are invisible in 
the mist. Occasionally a ray from the hidden 
sun strikes a white village like a spotlight and it 
becomes the center of the stage for a minute or 
two. 

At Luing (do not look in Baedeker for it) we 
drop a passenger and pick up two, a diminution 
in the population of Luing of probably two per 
cent. The group of buildings is on a green lit- 
tle island whose black edges have mildewed in 
the mist. Six or eight houses divide the solitude 
between them, but they mark "home" to some 
one. 

We make another stop before reaching Crinan, 
where we transfer to the "Linnet" and move 
away on the narrow surface of the Crinan Canal. 
This modest little ditch is only nine miles long, 
but it saves the weary mariner a seventy-five mile 
trip. The difference is greater in mileage than 
in time, however. It has a dozen locks and the 
passage requires two hours. Even when we are 
moving at top speed, small boys trot along the 



Oban 183 

path and solicit pennies. Wooded hills are on 
our right and a gradually widening sea wall is 
on our left. 

The passengers' luggage is not carried on the 
boat, but is loaded into carts, which we promptly 
outspeed but which catch us at the first or second 
lock. 

The little boat noses its way through lock after 
lock. The gates close behind us, the sluices in 
front are opened, we rise to the new level and 
push open the barrier with our steamer's prow. 
Many passengers leave the boat and walk the 
mile or so of locks, but as it is raining we stick 
to the ship. 

At Neil Smith's postoffice we commence our 
downward career. Our passengers come aboard 
again and there is nothing of interest save to 
watch the reverse process of lowering the boat 
lock by lock. At the last lock two large women 
are late and have to be lowered six feet by man 
power, but they get safely aboard. 

We reach Ardrishaig about twelve forty and 
with the assistance of a small boy who scrambled 
aboard at the preceding lock, our luggage is con- 
veyed about five minutes' walk to the docks, 
where we await the arrival of the "Ionia." There 
is a cloud of dust blowing and everyone is glad 
when the 'Tonia" is sighted. She is due at one 
o'clock and ties up on time. The dock is crowded 



184 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

with waiting passengers, and we wonder where 
we will all find room, but an equal number come 
ashore and there is no difficulty in finding places. 

We descend promptly to the dining saloon and 
eat a good lunch at the universal price for 
lunches, except when they are higher, viz.: half 
a crown or sixty cents. 

We ascertain that we can go all the way to 
Glasgow without changing to the railroad. Had 
the "Ionia" been a larger boat we would have 
been transferred to the railway at Dunoon. As 
it is we will have the advantage of approaching 
Glasgow through her avenue of wealth, the Clyde. 

It is very windy, but we enjoy the brief sun 
and the surrounding, scenery. Our way lies 
through the Kyles of Bute. For some reason or 
other, our imagination is stirred by the unusual 
name and we expect something new in the way of 
island scenery, and are correspondingly disap- 
pointed. 

We tie up at Rothesay, the capital of Bute, and 
a very fashionable resort, but the season is to^ 
early for the town to be at its best. There are 
not many people at the dock. A few week-enders 
get aboard, returning to Glasgow. 



Glasgow 185 



XVI 

Glasgow 



D 



T is raw and windy in spite of the sun- 
shine. We sit in the cabin eating 
chocolate and watching both banks of 
the Clyde, which gradually narrows 
above Greenock. Before reaching Glasgow, we 
pass Elderslie, the birthplace of William Wallace, 
who made things very troublesome for England 
in the last eight years of his short life. 

James Watt was born at Greenock. Some 
guide books give Glasgow as his birthplace, but 
in this they are mistaken. Glasgow has built the 
biggest monument to Watt in the world, for her 
shipyards are a living testimonial to his genius. 
His improvements of the steam engine made pos- 
sible the modern proficiency of transportation on 
land and sea. 

Our path up the Clyde is between miles of 
shipyards and past steamers flying the flags of 
every nation. The way is marked with buoys. 
Here comes a big Portuguese merchantman on 
her first trip. There goes an old freighter, appar- 



l86 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

ently on her last voyage. We see ships in every 
condition of life; ships incubating with naked 
ribs and ships shining in copper and brass ; ships 
with the paint rubbed off and ships with the final 
coat not dry ; forests of masts and acres of hulls. 

We land at the quay and hail a porter. We are 
assured that it is only five minutes' walk to St. 
Enoch's Hotel. We have not yet learned that 
five minutes is the positive outside limit of dis- 
tance on the British Isles, so we suffer the man 
to trot off with us at his heels. Our hotel is con- 
ducted by the railroad and is a part of the sta- 
tion from which we will take the train to Ayr. 

Cabs in Glasgow are three shillings an hour for 
sightseeing and two shillings for shopping. This 
legalizes the discrimination which is generally 
made between the tourist and the citizen. 

We drive past George Square, a fine open 
space decorated with statues of men who have 
made the history of Great Britain the stirring 
narrative it is. The IMunicipal Buildings face the 
Square. 

The Cathedral is a beautiful building with ter- 
raced grounds. The monument to John Knox 
is its most prominent feature. Within the church 
we pass down into the beautiful old crypt. The 
floor is uneven and the light is imcertain. It is 
a crippling crypt to the careless, but well worth 
the visit. 



Glasgow 187 

The glass in the Cathedral is modern and 
comes from Munich, where they stain so many 
glasses. 

We take a long drive through interesting 
streets to the Art Galleries in West End Park. 
There is a fine gallery of statuary and an excel- 
lent collection of Flemish, Italian and Dutch 
paintings. Each school has a separate room. "A 
Man in Armor" by Rembrandt is a wonderful 
example of that artist's mastery of light and 
shade. 

There is an excellent exhibit of glass and por- 
celain ware and a very complete museum of 
Greek and Roman relics. The institution has 
been the beneficiary of many bequests of large 
private collections. 

The Scotchman is exceedingly conservative 
and has answered the cry "Votes for Women" 
by chalking on the walls "No votes for women 
who smoke." That must be discouraging, to those 
of the fair sex who are training for masculine 
privileges by acquiring masculine habits. 

Glasgow has little to show the sightseer except 
the usual scenes of a busy, well governed, com- 
mercial city. There is much poverty in evidence, 
even in her best shopping districts, and some beg- 
gary. Matches are the chief merchandise of her 
street gamins. The plea "Buy a box, mester, so 
I can get me breakfast," is frequently heard. If 



i88 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

you should ask for a distinguishing characteristic 
between the laboring and the loafing, poor of 
Glasgow and those of an American metropolis, 
we would say it was in the absence of vim, en- 
thusiasm, or what you will, in the eye of the mid- 
dle or lower class man, woman and child in the 
former city. This is true of every old world 
metropolis that we have visited, and while polit- 
ical economists may differ as to the cause, honest 
observers from the United States cannot differ 
as to the fact. The stay-at-home Briton will deny 
or possibly resent it, but that is because he has 
never seen any other expression of countenance 
on a working man and has no conception of any- 
thing different. 

We would not for the world discourage the 
American working man from going after more 
rights, but if he thinks he has not accumulated 
a few, let him take a short trip to Europe and 
study the men in his walk of life as they appear 
abroad. And taking a trip abroad is easily within 
the reach of any American laboring man, while 
we have talked with sober, hard-working Irish- 
men who had put in a lifetime trying to get to- 
gether the money to go to America and had not 
succeeded. The hundreds of thousands who do 
go are many of them assisted by friends or rela- 
tives already in America. 

There is one fairly well paid department of 



Glasgow 189 

work that is practicall)' monopolized by foreign- 
ers in England, and that is waiting on table. Just 
why a country which is looking everywhere for a 
solution of its unemployed labor problem should 
neglect this open door is a mystery. The Scotch 
are wiser and your waiter in Scotland is usually 
Scotch. About half of the waiters in Ireland 
are Irish, but in England you will, as a rule, be 
served in the dining room by French, Italian or 
German waiters. 



190 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XVII 

Ayr 



rVVi E had planned to go to Dumfries and 
I f »1 visit the grave of Robert Burns, but 
BUkJJ Scotch railways have decreed other- 
wise. It would take us another day, 
and we prefer to spend our extra time in Ayr, 
his birthplace. 

We catch the one two train and are taking the 
usual inventory of our belongings, when B. asks, 
"Where is your rain coat?" and I reply, "Hang- 
ing in our hotel room in Glasgow." 

That requires quick decision and rapid action 
on our part. The train stops at a suburb. We 
unload our goods on the platform, make hurried 
inquiries and find we can catch a late train back 
to Glasgow if we hustle. We toil up the stairs 
and over the viaduct and down the other side 
just as the train pulls in. We pay two cents each 
for our return trip and pop in on our surprised 
hotel friends in less than an hour after we 
thought we had bid them farewell forever. 
We found them in a turmoil, not only because I 



Ayr 191 

had been permitted to depart without my coat, 
but also because I had hurried away without 
taking a dollar and eighty cents change which 
was due me. 

I am stating these facts with all humility, 
realizing the perfectly true light it puts me in, 
because I want publicly to make my acknowledg- 
ments and bear testimony to Scotch honesty. 
Further, and in order to make this confession 
complete, I draw my pencil through a paragraph 
of denunciation based on an overcharge of two 
shillings in a previous hotel bill, believing it more 
than oflfset by our later experience. 

Travelers are very apt to pillory a whole coun- 
try for a mistake on the part of a hotel book- 
keeper, forgetting that they may have caused the 
error by clamoring for an accounting during the 
last five minutes of their stay. 

Another pan of coals was heaped on us by the 
station master who witnessed our hasty departure 
and quick return and who vised our tickets, 
which, of course, had been punched. 

And while we are affixing floral decorations to 
our hosts, let us add that the British Isles are 
free from two prominent features of our own 
United States. We saw no flies in our travels, 
and no screens. Furthermore, we saw no gum 
chewing. 

On our way to Ayr we passed through Paisley. 



192 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

In our grandmothers' day, a Paisley shawl was 
a passport into the circle of the well-to-do. Pais- 
ley is also the home of Coats and Clark's thread. 

This part of Scotland is as closely cultivated 
as the best portion of England. The day is bright 
(else the rain coat would not have been forgot- 
ten) and our road runs along beside a winding 
river and past a pretty lake with a picnic party 
on its bank and a lone fisherman on its surface 
in a rowboat. 

Our compartment is shared by two women and 
a dog, the latter being provided with a ticket by 
his mistress. We pass many golf links, and play- 
ers with golf bags and clubs alight at every sta- 
tion. 

At Ayr we drive through the neat village. 
There is an atmosphere of gladness not usual in 
Scotch villages. We remark on the cheerful 
faces of the laughing children returning from 
school. 

It is less than an hour's ride in a carriage to 
Burns' Cottage. As usual, our six-shilling car- 
riage is passed by a threepenny tram before we 
cover half the distance, but no one told us all of 
these things that we are telling, you. 

The Burns Cottage is flush with the road. You 
pass through a turnstile into a large and well- 
kept yard. The cottage is as it was when Burns 
was born, except that it is undoubtedly far neater. 



Ayr 193 

At right angles to it is another building stocked 
with souvenirs suitable to all purses and some 
tastes. Both buildings are of whitewashed clay 
with thatched roofs. 

The cottage in which the poet first saw the light 
of a turf fire was built by his father's own hands. 
It has two rooms. One is the kitchen, the other 
is not. Burns was born in the kitchen and the 
bed is still there. In a sort of a closet in the 
wall, is a shelf where the children slept. This 
was probably built in later, as Robert was the 
first-born of seven. His early life was one of 
premature toil and drudgery. His later years 
and habits have been painted in the blackest 
colors. How much of this was due to local 
prejudice cannot be determined. At any rate, we 
to whom have been given the broad humanity of 
his poetry and its expression of an all-embracing 
love for his kind, can well afiford to be thankful 
for the gift and forget the faults of the giver. 
There may be a rebuke to pharisaism in the media 
through which some of the best thoughts are 
given to mankind. While quaffing the wine, do 
not abuse the vessel. 

The cottage was sold in 1781 and used as a 
public house known as "Burns' Cottage." Later 
a picture of Robert Burns was used as a sign and 
is one of the relics on exhibition. The beds were 



% 



194 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

all built into the walls, and hence were not taken 
away when the family moved. 

In 1903 about fifty thousand visitors passed 
through the turnstile, and the number increases 
yearly. 

Practically all of the furniture used by the poet 
and his father has been assembled here, includ- 
ing chairs, tables, dresser, chest of drawers and 
milking stool. There are other articles from 
the inn at Ayr frequented by Tam O'Shanter and 
Souter Johnnie. 

In the Museum are countless manuscripts and 
engravings and many personal belongings, in- 
cluding a lock of Burns' hair. 

A little farther on, at AUoway, are the ruins 
of the tiny old kirk, where Burns' father is 
buried. The churchyard was so small and its 
contents so clearly labeled that we simply saluted 
the one-legged guide at the gate and asked him 
no questions. 

Seeing that other tourists followed our ill-man- 
nered example, we paused on our way out, made 
a remark about the weather and tendered the old 
man a sixpence. Would you believe it, that 
sturdy Scotch veteran refused our siller. He 
said, "I have nae earned it." We explained to 
him that our object in hurrying past him was to 
save time, not money. We might have added, 
but did not, that we knew from experience that 



Ayr 195 

there was no checking the tide of loquacity when 
one of these local guides commenced to leak 
poetry and statistics. Still he spurned our offer. 
I respected his pride and pocketed the insult. 
Then B. tried her hand. She consulted him as 
to the best point for a picture. He told her to 
take her choice. She scrambled on a wall and 
tried a snapshot. The old man smiled commiserat- 
ingly. 

"Ye've lost a plate there, miss," he said. 

We remarked that it was difficult to get a good 
picture in such a small place. 

"Small, do ye call it ?" and his old bristles arose 
again. 

We amended by saying that the space was 
small but crowded with big events. 

"Aye," he said, "and noo I'll show ye where 
to tak yer picter." 

He stumped ahead of us to a corner from 
which B. made another attempt. We then said, 
"Now you are entitled to the sixpence," but still 
he would not take it, but only said, "H ye'd gi'en ^ 
me a chance, I'd ha' earned it." 

So when you visit old Alloway Kirk, we trust 
you will meet this great natural curiosity and lay 
your plans carefully to force a tip upon him. He '^' 
is worthy of it. 

Alloway Kirk is well described in "Tarn 
O'Shanter." We leave it and go on to the Brig 



196 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

(bridge) over the Doon, the scene of part of 
Tarn's terrible ride. The Bums Monument is 
near the bridge. An entrance fee of four cents is 
charged. The banks of the Doon are inclosed by 
a tea garden from which excellent views may be 
had of the river and both bridges. Admission, 
four cents. 

We drive back to Ayr and resume our journey 
to Stranraer, from where we are to take the 
steamer to Ireland. At Girvan we would have 
changed cars for Dumfries, but do not. Conse- 
quently we are unmoved when the guard sticks 
his head into our compartment window and 
makes a noise like a snare drum. 

It is hard to describe the Scotch pronunciation. 
Except in the matter of r they are very thrifty in 
the volume given their consonants. They mute 
the final m, n and c very much like a drummer 
who strikes a sharp note and then places his hand 
on the vibrating instrument. Maude Adams does 
it to perfection, and to hear her say "Jo^^^" i" 
"What Every Woman Knows" is to get the key 
to the whole method. 



Ireland-Belfast 197 



XVIII 
Ireland-Belfast 



P^Sj E choose the crossing from Stranraer to 
Bf 1v Larne because it is the shortest one, 
ByJUl Usually that means the roughest as 
well, but to-day the North Channel is like 
a pond. The "Princess May" rides as smoothly 
as a ferry boat. 

We make some pleasant acquaintances in the 
two hours and a quarter on board. An old clergy- 
man and his daughter tell us much about Ireland 
and say that we will be disappointed if we are 
looking for "brogue." Their assurances are 
couched in the broadest Irish possible. They ask 
us if we know much about Ireland. We say no, 
but we are going to Larne. This gets neither the 
smile we expected nor the frown we deserve, but 
merely the assurance that Larne is not a typical 
Irish town. 

Shortly after sunset the coast of Ireland is 
sighted. The sunset provokes a discussion. A 
young Scotchman insists that the sun sets in 
the west. It requires the assistance of a com- 



198 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

pass to prove to him that it is going down almost 
due north. 

It is a thirty-five minute ride to Belfast from 
Larne. Most travelers stay all night in the for- 
mer city, as it has better hotels. The lights across 
Belfast Lough look very pretty as we near the 
end of our ride. 

After a good night's rest in Belfast we shop 
until noon. Our eyes are caught by a typical 
Irish bull on a playbill, typical because uninten- 
tional. It reads : 

"May Henderson 

The Dusky Comedy Queen 

Neville Delmar 

Light Comedian" 

The increased cost of living beat us to Belfast. 
There are no extraordinary bargains in linen. We 
bought a modest supply of handkerchiefs and a 
few pieces of lace because of the quality. The 
world is so small commercially, and expert buyers 
from America enable our large retail stores to 
sell almost as cheaply as the foreigner. In a 
great many cases tourists are cajoled into buying 
grotesque fashions in a foreign shop that they 
will never wear twice at home. These bizarre 
things are generally the high priced ones. 

Just to cite one masculine example, take neck- 
ties. The attractive patterns range about the 



Ireland-Belfast 199 



same in price as at home, but the quality seems 
better. You select a dozen or so. You keep them 
immaculate until you get back to Cincinnati or 
Chicago. When you tie them, behold, the ends 
hardly reach below the top button of your vest. 
The Englishman invariably wears a waistcoat, 
hence the scantiness is not revealed. The Ameri- 
can, flaunting his curtailed adornment on his un- 
covered shirt front, feels partly disrobed. And 
that vest reminds us that we saw an establishment 
in London that displayed a sign offering a sort 
of circulating waistcoat scheme. For so much 
per week this Tabardashery would bring, you a 
clean vest every morning, taking up the previous 
day's issue. 

Belfast is a modern commercial city where 
linen and many other things are manufactured. 
It has a good harbor and is well lighted, paved 
and drained. But it is not a place in which to 
see things that are different. 

Nevertheless, we felt that we had a duty to 
perform, so we started out to find Carlisle 
Memorial Church. The tram conductors were 
cordial but uninformed. In fact, the small boy's 
rendering of the advertisement "uninformed 
guides" would have fitted them perfectly. 

Finally our car was stopped and four churches 
were in sight. 



2CK) Three Weeks in the British Isles 

"One of these must be Carlisle, sir. Take your 
choice." 

One of them was Carlisle, but it was so much 
like a hundred churches that we could have seen 
without leaving home that we were disappointed. 

And this is true of all Belfast. The things that 
mean prosperity and growth, that represent its 
modern up-to-date spirit, are not the things that 
a tourist wants to see. He can dodge trolley cars 
at home. It is the moss and ivy of decay that is 
attractive to us, and we show our love for it at 
home by tearing down every twenty-year-old 
building in town and building a higher and uglier 
one. 

The train for Portrush and the Giant's Cause- 
way leaves at twelve twenty-five. Knowing that 
it will carry a diner or restaurant coach, we plan 
to eat en route. That is not so simple a matter 
as at home. We cannot walk from one car to 
another until we reach the diner. We must wait 
until the train stops, leave our luggage in our 
compartment and rush along the station platform. 
The waiter is disquietingly non-committal as to 
the probability of our luggage being side-tracked 
before we reach Portrush. We recall that one of 
our fellow passengers in the compartment was a 
villainous looking individual. We ask when the 
first stop will be made and at the earliest oppor- 
tunity go tearing back to our car, whose number 








SUNSET ox THE NORTH CHANNEL 



Ireland-Belfast 201 



we have forgotten, having eaten less than half 
our table d'hote luncheon. 

The luggage is safe, we give a sigh of relief 
and fall back on our reserve of chocolate. We 
are more than ever confirmed in our resolve to 
move up a peg in the social world and travel 
second class in Ireland. 

We change cars at Coleraine, so it is just as 
well that we returned to our compartment. Any- 
one who wants change should travel in the British 
Isles. We have not had an uninterrupted ride of 
fifty miles since landing. 

We are striking some more cinematograph 
weather. A morning like we had in Belfast 
would have caused us to give the day up for lost 
at home. It has alternated rain and shine at 
brief intervals very much as in Holland. 

The hawthorn hedges are filled with white 
bloom. Much peat is lying and drying on top of 
the ground. It is called "turf" in Ireland. In 
spite of their flowers, the hedges are unkempt and 
contrast very decidedly with the neatly trimmed 
rows in England. The lanes are weedy and there 
is an air of indolence over everything. The land- 
scape is no greener than in England thus far, but 
our Irish friends say, "Wait until you see Kil- 
larney." 

We have a good deal of fun inquiring of Irish- 
men as to the prettiest spot in Ireland. Each one 



202 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

invariably names his own section of the country. 
It is a commendable spirit of partisanship, but it 
shows why Ireland as a nation has accomplished 
so little. 

We nearly missed our change of cars at Cole- 
raine because of the bad phrasing of the an- 
nouncer. This fault is not restricted to Ireland 
but is world-wide. If a traveler knows in ad- 
vance the facts that are being given, he can trace 
a family resemblance thereto, but the stranger, 
the one who needs the information, is simply 
dazed, even if he is familiar with the language. 
The helplessness and hopelessness of the for- 
eigner is apparent. 

Let these employees be taught that they are 
hired to convey information to the uninformed, 
the nervous and the hurried passengers and need 
to be more careful than are ordinary mortals in 
their utterances. 

At Coleraine we simply stood still, and that 
proved to be our salvation. Our train pulled out 
and the Portrush train backed in on the same 
track. 



The Giant's Causeway 203 



XIX 
The Giant's Causeway 



0jT Portrush, the trolley car for the Giant's 
Causeway is clanging- its gong as we 
come into the station. We hand our 

luggage to a hotel porter, climb into 
the car, pay thirty-six cents each for a round- 
trip ticket, and start on an eight-mile ride. The 
train consists of an open motor car and two 
trailers, an open and a closed one. We choose the 
closed one, as the road looks dusty. The ride 
takes forty-five minutes. You see practically 
nothing of the beautiful coast scenery from the 
car. You have a look at Dunluce Castle as you 
ride past. It stands a hundred feet above the 
sea, on a steep rock. It is in absolute ruin to-day, 
but must have been impregnable from assault 
before the days of artillery. Its only connection 
with the mainland is over a walk eighteen inches 
wide. 

We are hardly off the car at the Causeway 
until we are surrounded by guides. We pick 



» 



204 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

number seven, Archie Fall, as the most energetic 
and intelligent, and do not regret our choice. 

We are assured that we are fortunate in find- 
ing the Atlantic Ocean so smooth, and are easily 
persuaded to take the long boat ride from Run- 
kerry Cave past the northernmost point of the 
Causeway. 

With our guide and another man at the oars, 
we are soon out on the ocean. In a little while 
we round our way into Portcoon Cave. The 
entrance is forty-five feet high and the cave 
extends back four hundred and fifty feet. When 
you have penetrated about fifty yards, a signal 
is given to a young man, who fires a pistol to 
awaken the echoes. The effect is tremendous 
and you feel as though a heavy field piece had 
been discharged close to you. 

The red rocks that form the base of the cave 
are in striking contrast to the dark walls and 
yellowish green fringe around the ceiling. 

All of this color scheme is repeated on a 
grander scale in Runkerry Cave, a short row 
westward. The two walls are of different geo- 
logical formation, and there is a distinct seam 
where these monster masses have met and fused, 
forming the roof of the cavern. The Gothic 
entrance is ninety-six feet high, and the cave 
runs back under the cliff for six hundred and 



The Giant's Causeway 205 

sixty-six feet. A silent but watchful cormorant 
peers at us from her nest under the roof. 

We return to the open sea and are assured 
that you could make a straight line from our 
boat to New York City without touching land. 
This is true, allowing for a detour around Malin 
Head. Here we are, three thousand miles out 
from New York, on the Atlantic Ocean, in an 
open boat. If Ireland had not been so near we 
would have been nervous. 

The guide said, "If this weather would hold, 
sir, I could take you all the way to America." 

As we have not had any weather, good or bad, 
"hold" for two hours since leaving Oban, we 
decline the offer. 

We row until we reach the tip end of the 
coast. It sticks up as straight and as bold from 
water as the North Cape, but, brave as it is, it is 
fighting a losing battle with the Atlantic and has 
been retreating throughout the ages. 

To attempt to describe the panorama before 
which our boat is passing is futile, and yet so 
magnificently is it all fitted, each part into the 
other, that only when an insect called man waves 
an antenna from a cliff do we realize that these 
massive columns of the Giant's Organ are sixty 
feet high and form the ribs of cliffs four or five 
hundred feet in altitude. 



2o6 Three Weeks m the British Isles 

Still we have not seen what we came to see, 
the Giant's Causeway. 

The Organ Pipes, forty-five feet high, stand 
detached from the other rocks. These were shot 
at by the Spanish Armada, who mistook them 
for the walls of Dunluce Castle miles away. 
How do we know they shot at them? Because 
they missed them. 

The guide says that the pipes play but two 
tunes, "The Wearing of the Green" and "The 
Battle of the Boyne," in order to suit all parties. 

As late as 1844 a wreck was pointed out in 
Spanish Bay as having been one of the Armada, 
but this has disappeared, having marked a mere 
moment of time to the ages-old basaltic sentinels 
that watch the bay. 

On our way to these scenes, the real Giant's 
Causeway was pointed out. From our boat, a 
quarter of a mile away, the celebrated path of 
Fin MacCoul resembled a deserted dock which 
had been gradually pounded to pieces by the 
waves. It certainly does not look worth the trip. 
But wait ! 

We row around Lion's Rock, on which count- 
less sea gulls are nesting, and we see little baby 
gulls with yawning mouths stretching from 
crannies and crying for more. 

We look through the Giant's Eye Glass, and 
while we gaze the guide hands his oar to the 



The Giant's Causeway 207 

boatman and carefully unwraps a fossil snake 
curled in the center of a pebble. He says that 
during the long winter months he hunts among 
the rocks for these encasing pebbles to sell in 
the summer to tourists. Of course, we buy it. 
We cannot resist his final argument, "At laste, 
sir, they can niver say it was made in Germany, 
like most of the soovyneers." 

There is a superb setting for the foreground 
of ocean all about here. Some of the massive 
columns have curved in cooling under the weight 
of a world above them. Some stand up as 
straight as pine trees. 

Lion's Rock has three distinct strata. On a 
base of iron ore is superimposed a layer of as 
good lava as Vesuvius ever belched forth. On 
top of this is the same basaltic rock that forms 
the Causeway. 

This is the junk shop of antediluvian forces, 
the scrap heap of a finished planet. 

Still we have not touched the Giant's Cause- 
way! All that we have so far seen has been 
preparatory and educational. To walk from the 
trolley to the Causeway would be to risk dis- 
appointment. The boat ride enables you to appre- 
ciate the piece de resistance by giving you an 
idea of how it is made and a glimpse of the 
materials. 

Almost before we realize its proximity, our 



2o8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

boat's keel scrapes a rock, we look down many 
feet through the transparent water to the waving 
palm garden beneath us, and are handed gently 
ashore by Archie. 

The boatman is now dismissed and we proceed 
on foot over the Great Causeway, the eastern of 
the three groups. The others are known as the 
Middle and the Little Causeway, the three form- 
ing the Giant's Causeway. 

It only rises a few feet above water, even at 
low tide, but it is the most whimsical of Nature's 
many pranks. It resembles a box of gigantic 
crayons crushed by having been dropped a mile 
or so. Every geometrical figure is represented, 
from a triangle to an octagon. An eight-sided 
keystone forms the exact center of the Great 
Causeway. One diamond-shaped surface attracts 
the eye. The guide points out the Lady's Fan 
spread at your feet and formed by the tops of 
pillars. No matter how many-sided a column is, 
it joins its neighbors perfectly. The joints of 
each column form perfect bearings, a concave 
surface resting on a convex one. 

All these are interesting, but you are looking 
for the Wishing Chair. You pick your way over 
limpet-covered rocks to a seat formed by a group 
of pillars, and make your allotted three wishes. 
If you have a camera, your photograph is taken, 




THE GIANTS EYEGLASS 



The Giant's Causeway 209 

and one wish is expended in hoping that the 
picture will come out all right. 

We were just leaving the consecrated spot 
when we met a breathless Scotchman, He was 
seeing the Causeway without a guide, for good 
Scotch reasons. He had been looking for the 
Wishing Chair for half an hour, he said. We 
pointed it out and left him sitting in it, pouring 
forth an oblation of perspiration to the Goddess 
of Chance. It was then five forty-five, and if 
we thought of him at all, we assumed that he 
caught the six o'clock car to Portrush. 

Picture our surprise on our way to town on 
the seven fifteen tram when a hand touched us, 
and, looking around, we saw our Scotchman. 

He said in a hoarse voice, "I did na get ma 
wish." 

I asked, "What was your wish?" 

He disregarded my question. 

"I missed ma train lukin' fer the wishin' spot. 
The last train for Derby has gone, an' ma lug- 
gage has gone wi' it, an' I'm in Portrush for the 
nicht with what I've got on ma back." 

"Hard luck," I said, but I was still interested 
in the main issue. 

"What was your wish?" I persisted. 

"Oh, mon, I've clean forgot the wish," he said, 
despondently. 

Well, that incident put us a little ahead of our 



210 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

story. We clamber over the other sections of 
the Causeway, always finding natural steps for 
our feet. We are quite ready to patronize the 
old woman who presides over the Giant's Well, 
a spring of clear, cold water. She rinses the 
glasses carefully and is grateful for a penny 
or two. 

The Giant's Causeway is another of those in- 
stances where God proposes and man disposes — 
of tickets of admission. There are people who 
would supplant the pearly gates with a turnstile 
if they could. 

Mr. Hugh Lecky owns the Causeway, but has 
leased it to a syndicate. The syndicate has put 
a wire fence around it. The only money it has 
expended is for ground rent and the fence. It has 
had the grace not to try to improve the Causeway. 

The admission is only twelve cents, but the 
surrounding populace are very much opposed to 
the principle of the thing and will not patronize 
it. They will row all around it and make faces 
at it, but will not set foot on it. They tried liti- 
gation for a while, but the courts were strong 
for "vested rights" (I wonder who first knocked 
the "in" off that "vested") and the people were 
beaten. 

One who has paid twenty-five cents for riding 
up South Cheyenne Canyon cannot consistently 
criticize the Irish syndicate, but he sympathizes 



The Giant's Causeway 211 

with the Ohio tourist in Colorado who remarked 
when he handed over his quarter: "Well, I call 
this a pretty good joke on God Almighty," 

We leave the trolley at its nearest point to the 
North Counties Hotel, to which our luggage was 
sfent, and walk several blocks, while we wonder 
what sort of an inn we have drawn in the lottery. 
All Irish hotels are not prizes. Of course, w^ 
walk in the street. To use the sidewalk would 
brand you as a tourist at once. 

We find ourselves very comfortably housed, 
with a room on the ocean side, out of which we 
can watch the setting sun. We refrain from 
eulogizing the dinner, as we have an inward 
feeling that we could eat anything with relish 
after our boat ride and scramble over the rocks. 

Archie turned the laugh on us as we were 
leaving him. A large flock of sheep was grazing 
on the hillside. "I suppose you know, sir, bein' 
from Ameriky, why it is the white sheep bleat 
oftener than the black ones." We did not. 
"Because there's more of 'em, sir." 



212 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XX 

Londonderry 



H ""■""* HE people at the Causeway were lament- 
ing the disappearance of turf. "We 
_ are gettin' down to the clay, sir, and 

ye know what that manes." 

It means no more peat. At present this fuel 
costs them a dollar a cartload, and they have 
no idea of the size of the load. Generally it is 
sold by the "kish" or basketful. It makes a good 
fire and burns without waste to a fine ash. The 
Irish say that the smoke is sanitary, but they 
claim that of other things which they permit to 
accumulate around their dooryards. 

To-day we go to Londonderry, but do not let 
an Ulster man hear you call it anything but 
"Derry." 

Derry is one of the pretty little cities of Ire- 
land. It is neat and clean, with a stirring history 
and well preserved landmarks. It has forty 
thousand people and they all look well fed and 
well washed. This latter characteristic is not 
universal on the west coast. 



Londonderry 213 

The siege of Londonderry, in 1689, was one 
of the heroic events of Irish history. It lasted 
from April until August, and was marked by 
much stubborn courage and great suffering on 
the part of the defenders. 

George Walker, a preacher, took command in 
the town after the treacherous Governor Lundy 
had made his escape to join the forces of 
James II. 

December i8th is celebrated annually in com- 
memoration of the act of thirteen apprentice 
boys who closed the gates in the face of the 
besieging army. One of their regular practices 
is to burn Lundy in effigy on these occasions. 

Walker's memory is perpetuated by a heroic 
statue on the old walls. 

In going to Derry, we change again at Cole- 
raine and wait eleven minutes for a train. Then 
we ride past miles of beautiful beach, with long 
combers of surf rolling in and breaking on the 
sand. The water shades from yellow near the 
shore, through all the greens imaginable into a 
deep blue that is almost black. On we go, past 
the boggy banks of Lough Foyle, with flocks of 
disconsolate-looking gulls waiting for the tide 
to turn. 

At Londonderry we stop at the Northern 
Counties Hotel, right under the old walls. These 
walls are in an excellent state of preservation. 



214 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

It is only a mile around them, and they form the 
most popular promenade in the town. 

The Cathedral of St. Colomb's was the citadel 
during the great siege. In it Walker held the 
fort. Every foot of lead was stripped from its 
roof and melted into bullets. Into its graveyard 
was fired the bomb which bore an invitation to 
surrender and an outline of terms. This brought 
the terse reply from the besieged, "No sur- 
render." 

The bombshell is one of the most cherished 
relics within the church to-day. The building 
was only fifty-six years old at the time of the 
siege, and is not beautiful except to one who 
knows its history. 

The scenes of the siege were similar to those 
at Leyden in the preceding century. Every quad- 
ruped in and under the city was killed and eaten. 
Starvation and disease claimed over two thou- 
sand victims, while food was only a few miles 
away. The fleet of Kirke was just across the 
Foyle. Finally the "Mountjoy" broke through 
the obstructing boom, and with the "Phoenix" 
sailed up to the city walls with an abundant sup- 
ply of rations. 

All this is history and not travel, but it may 
lead some to visit the scene of such heroism, and 
to stand uncovered before the statue of George 
Walker. The city seal contains the figure of a 



Londonderry 215 

tottering skeleton. It commemorates the starving 
inhabitants. 

The Bishop's Throne, with Archbishop Bram- 
hall's chair, is at the end of the nave. The 
pulpit is elaborately carved, and the seats of the 
chair bear individual designs, one hundred and 
sixty-eight in number. 

The old organ was a delight to antiquarians 
and a torment to musicians. A new one was 
installed in 1886. We could appreciate the wis- 
dom of replacing the organ, but our sense of 
the fitness of things was jarred when we learned 
that at the same time they had replaced the old 
banners which had hung there since the siege. 

One incident in the church will illustrate the 
simplicity of these people. The first name in the 
register of St. Colomb's Cathedral is that of 
George, now King of England, written when he 
was Prince of Wales; the second is that of his 
wife. The register is in use to-day and has been 
in daily use ever since. Ours were the last names 
entered up to noon. The book looks like a gro- 
cer's day-book, and is wearing out. It is handled 
by dozens every week. No steps have been taken 
to preserve the royal autographs, and apparently 
it has never occurred to anyone to abstract the 
page. At least it has never occurred to anyone 
before to-day, and I did not do it. 

It was not mere honesty that stayed my hand. 



2i6 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

It was too much Hke removing candy from the 
sticky fingers of a slumbering infant. But I hope 
some safeguard will be thrown around that page 
before I visit Londonderry again. 

Within the Cathedral is a tablet dated 1633. 
Under it a newer one reproduces this verse from 
the old stone : 

"If stones covld speake 
Then London's prayse 
Shovld sovnde who 
Bvilt this chvrch and 
Cittie from the grovnde" 

And it might be added, "and kept the grovnde" 
and collected rent on it ever since. 

Outside the walls near the Cathedral are the 
tenements of the poor. For smiling poverty, Ire- 
land beats Naples. Bare-footed women visit 
back and forth, and half-clad children play in 
the gutter with the kittens and puppies. We 
observed no intoxication. Thus far the record 
for drunks is small and evenly divided between 
Scotland and Ireland. We saw one man under 
the influence of liquor in Edinburgh and one in 
Derry. 

The hotel waiters are Irish, a step in advance 
over England and a great portion of Scotland. 
There are other evidences of thrift that are not 
so conimendable from the standpoint of the 



Londonderry 217 

guest. It is necessary to examine your napkin 
to see whether you are its first user. They have 
a way of folding it with the soiled portion within. 
Frequently you unfold several before you find 
one that is not h'all marked. (Enghsh joke.) 

Dinner is not to be taken for granted in Derry. 
You order it if you wish it, and specify the hour. 
Unless you give notice you get no dinner. There 
being no dinner on the fire at our hotel at five 
thirty, we went to a neighboring restaurant with 
stained glass windows and stainless napery, and 
were told that they served luncheon only. We 
said, "What do people do who wish to eat dinner 
in this town?" They asked where we were stop- 
ping, and said, "Go back there and order dinner. 
They will get it for you." Sure enough, they did. 
In half an hour after stating our wants, we sat 
down to a complete dinner. 

We took a long drive to-day to see the Grianan 
of Aileach. This was a ruin when Ptolemy was 
writing travel books in 120 a. d. It was probably 
once a pagan temple, and its site was selected 
more for its proximity to heaven than for the 
convenience of the congregation. 

You drive five or six miles in a jaunting car, 
and then if you are an Irishman you follow your 
nose, for it is an uphill walk of two miles at an 
angle of forty-five degrees. After walking this 
distance you fall into a stone quarry. That is 



2i8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the Grianan. Unless you are an archaeologist, 
you can fall into a stone quarry nearer town and 
have just as good a time. 

Our drive was absolutely without a shade tree 
the whole distance, and as jaunting cars have 
no protection from the weather, we sat in the 
sun all the way. Many of the fields were planted 
in flax, with here and there a man or woman 
sowing a turnip patch. We passed one lone 
schoolhouse and could see the children at their 
desks. Our driver said that there was ample 
opportunity for anyone who wanted to obtain a 
common school education. He knew whereof he 
spoke, for he was the father of twelve children. 

There were many of the old type of laborers" 
houses, with a door and two windows, the latter 
frequently plastered immovably into the wall. 
Farther south in Ireland we saw many huts 
without chimney or window. 

Around Londonderry are a number of new 
houses built by the government at a cost of six 
or seven hundred dollars each and sold to the 
farmers on fifty years' time, with small pay- 
ments. A half acre of ground surrounds each 
of these neat, comfortable-looking dwellings. 
They are two stories high, and are well lighted 
and ventilated. The payments are thirty-six cents 
a week. 

Our driver informs us that some of his cus- 



Londonderry 219 

tomers told him that Grianan was a fort. Its 
location is better for repelling invaders than for 
attracting- worshipers. 

An eleven-mile ride in a jaunting car caused 
me to ask our jarvie why this form of torture 
had not disappeared with other early Christian 
practices. He said, "Oh, there are a good many 
covered machines, and some inside cars, but none 
of 'em are so comfortable as the jaunting car. 
Ye see, sor, they take all the motion from the 
horse." 

They undoubtedly do — and transfer it to the 
cart. 

An "inside car" is a jaunting car with ingrow- 
ing seats, like the pony carts that you see in the 
parks at home. 

My pedestrian excursion to the Grianan gave 
me several views of farmyards. I passed through 
some in which the filth and stench were un- 
speakable. Pools of stagnant water stand at 
the very doors, flanked with heaps of manure. 
This section of Ireland should appeal to a literary 
man. Most of the inhabitants live by their pens. 

Nearer town we saw several handsome villas 
and inquired their history. They were built "on 
speculation" and are not doing very well. Cross- 
examination elicited the fact that some two or 
three land owners several years ago instituted an 
innovation. They built houses, not to live in, but 



220 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

to rent, an unusual procedure hereabouts. Years 
ago city real estate in Londonderry was so in- 
active that a bonus of twelve acres in the country 
was given to each purchaser of a city lot. These 
suburban tracts are known as "Derry Dozens," 
and it is on some of these that villas were con- 
structed, in the hope of securing a return on the 
investment. 

One thing that grates on the American is 
absentee ownership of thousands of acres and 
whole cities. This is strongly accented in 
Londonderry, which is almost entirely owned 
in London by certain companies, survivors of 
the guilds of olden days. 

Most of Portrush belongs to the Earl of 
Antrim, together with a great deal of the sur- 
rounding country. The Marquis of Donegal 
owns thousands of acres in Counties Londonderry 
and Donegal, next on the west. 

There is a hopeful tone about the people under 
the new land act, and the Boer War did a great 
deal to unify the "three kingdoms," as they call 
them in Ireland. 

The Irish car driver is a glib talker and un- 
hampered by facts. You can get any opinion 
you want on politics, religion or weather. Take, 
for example, the siege of Derry. The driver 
says it lasted six weeks. The verger of St. 
Colomb's thinks it must have been six or more 



Londonderry 221 

months. The guide book gives one hundred and 
five days, virhich is the correct time. 

George Walker, the hero of the siege, was 
killed in less than a year afterward at the Battle 
of the Boyne, July i, 1690. He should have 
gone back to preaching. 



222 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXI 

Westport and the Connemara Country 



^RSjE arise early and take the seven thirty 
If fl train to Westport. It will consume 
Bjm eight and a half hours, going a little 
over one hundred miles. We skirt 
County Donegal and go through Tyrone, Fer- 
managh, Sligo and Mayo. 

That represents considerable travel to these 
people. At least you would think so to hear our 
car driver enumerate the towns he has visited in 
his lifetime, all within twenty miles of Derry. He 
winds up with, "An' I've been to Donegal twicet, 
but that was thirty year ago, afore they put the 
railroad in." 

Up at the Giant's Causeway the old woman 
who is barmaid at the Giant's Well said that the 
hills around her measured the boundaries of her 
travels. Archie Fall, our guide, had been a win- 
ter in Glasgow, but the crowds worried him and 
he came back to County Antrim and its beautiful 
scenes. He said that there are people within five 



Westport and Connemara Country 223 

miles of the Causeway who have never seen it 
nor the tramway leading to it. 

Whether that sort of lassitude is a cause or 
an effect of landlordism I leave to political 
economists to decide. Certainly it is not the spirit 
that throws off the yoke of the oppressor. 

Ireland, if developed, could support twice its 
present population, and with a higher average of 
comfort. It has done so in the past. There are 
untouched iron and coal mines in Antrim. In 
Londonderry a big ship yard is closed and rot- 
ting to pieces because they have to bring wood, 
coal and iron across the water. With as good a 
harbor as that of Glasgow, Derry sits among her 
empty shipyards and weeps. 

Even the linen industry is dwindling. Why ? 
Because "they make linen everywhere nowadays." 
How is that for a supine sigh from the country 
which made it first and best ? 

But things look brighter in this section. If I 
could have closed my travels at Derry, I would 
quote the notes I made there and let them stand. 
I will quote them anyhow, and withdraw them 
when we get farther south. 

"Ireland is slowly rising from the despondency 
into which she has been plunged by a mixture of 
antagonistic religion and alien ownership com- 
bined with carpet-bag politics. The folly of kill- 
ing the goose so full of potential golden eggs 



224 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

and of driving into other countries the brains and 
brawn of Ireland, while spending millions on far- 
off India, South Africa and Egypt, is dawning 
on Great Britain. Charity after girdling the 
globe is approaching home." 

You do not blame me for not wanting to blue 
pencil that, do you? But it must be done later, 
for around Galway and other points we found 
them rejecting all advances and looking askance 
at every offer of relief. 

You cannot understand Ireland until you have 
talked to Irishmen all over their native land, and 
then you know that you can never understand it. 

One of the things you must come abroad to 
hear is a whole town leaving, the streets at nine 
thirty P. M. We had to get up early this morn- 
ing in Londonderry, so we beat the town to bed 
about half an hour. You can put your head on 
a pillow, but you can't make it sleep, so I listened 
to the noises of the street. One lone automobile 
honked its way among the strolling citizens. 
Then the solitary two-horse, double-decked tram 
jogged peacefully towards the Lough Swilly sta- 
tion. Some boys were playing a game which in- 
volved a good deal of yelling under our window 
with responses from other sections of the town. 
We call it "Wake the traveler" or something like 
that. There is nothing articulate about it. It is 
simply an audible expression of a boy's innate 



Westport and Connemara Country 225 

horror of silence. Hundreds of people walked 
by. You could hear their voices and laughter. 

At nine thirty the big chimes in a neighboring 
steeple rang out. Instantly the tone dropped and 
you could almost hear the feet point homeward. 
The noises died in every direction. We were the 
center of a receding ripple of sound. Even the 
tram car faded away. Silence reigned. The 
ghost of the automobile which had yielded up its 
honk at nine thirty glided by. A small party of 
revelers could be heard as the clock chimed the 
quarter, but there was an air of recklessness and 
bravado in the sound. Their steps grew fainter 
and stopped. There was a giggle a block away. 
A door slammed. Derry had gone to bed, and 
then, miracle of considerateness ! the chimes are 
stilled at ten thirty each night until six the next 
morning. 

The advantages of early retiring are apparent 
the following morning, for although we leave the 
hotel at seven o'clock, our bus is followed for 
several blocks of healthy, well dressed boys beg- 
ging for pennies. There is something radically 
lacking in Irish self-respect or this almost uni- 
versal begging would be done away with. In 
Italy you are not solicited for alms by the same 
class of people who bother you in Ireland. The 
Italian beggar can generally "show cause" if 
you care to look at it, but the Irish children and 



226 Three Weeks m the British Isles 

women ask simply because you are an American 
and they are Irish. 

We miss the rosy cheeks of England and Scot- 
land. There is a pallor about the Irish coun- 
tenance in great contrast with the other natives 
of the British Isles. They are not quite as color- 
less as the town-bred Americans, however. 

This part of Ireland is full of turf. We pass 
miles of it stacked up by the pits. Each spade 
full is a unit of almost uniform size. Men, women 
and children are engaged in the work, the men 
digging, the women and children piling it up. 

At Enniskillen we change cars for CoUooney. 
The Sixth Dragoons take their name Inniskillings 
from this town, for they were formerly recruited 
here. Now they get most of the Inniskillings in 
London. 

It takes over two hours to travel the thirty-five 
miles from Enniskillen to Collooney. Our train 
consists of a locomotive, five goods vans, a cattle 
car and two coaches. The track is exceedingly 
rough and the delays at stations are considerable. 

Ireland is insufficiently provided with railroads. 
Many farmers bring their produce fifteen or 
twenty miles to a railroad town. Our train leaves 
freight at every station for three or four adjacent 
villages. That is what takes so much time. 

We are getting among hills and loughs again. 
Our train runs the entire length of Lower Lough 



Westport and Connemara Country 227 

Macneane. Patient burros laden with turf stand 
beside the track. The people in this part of Ire- 
land are the least prepossessing. A bare-footed, 
ragged woman is at the Balcos station. Through- 
out rural Ireland whitewash is used as a mural 
cosmetic, easier to apply than soap and water. 

Ours is a single-track road, so we lie at Manor 
Hamilton for a long time waiting for a train 
from the other direction. This adds half an hour 
to our already too long ride. Hedge fences have 
disappeared ; stone fences are nov^ the only kind. 
They are built from the stones in the fields and 
do not exhaust the supply. 

Two Irishmen share our compartment. One 
is a salesman for a Canadian agricultural imple- 
ment house. The other is a local tradesman. 
Both are of about the same station in life and the 
same degree of intelligence. We four get into 
conversation. The two men argue every bit of 
information which they give us. 

We ask if turf is giving out. One says it is, 
the other says it is not. They agree on its mak- 
ing a fine fire. We want to know if it is dearer 
than coal. One says yes, the other says no. The 
first one insists that turf at one and six (thirty- 
six cents) the kish (basketful) is dearer than coal 
at a sovereign a ton. The other says, "Yes ; but 
ye can't get coal at a sovereign a ton," and his 
antagonist says, "That's thrue fer ye," and they 



228 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

fall to discussing the prettiest spot in Ireland, 
each clinging to his home county. 

That allegiance to county strikes us as a prob- 
able source of Ireland's political weakness. A 
County Mayo man would quit fighting an Eng- 
lishman to hand a good smash to a County 
Antrim man. One says of the other, "He's not 
Irish. He's Scotch." But you insist that the 
man in question was born in Ireland, "Sure if 
he was born in a stable, wud that make him a 
calf ?" is the reply. 

From the beginning of history Ireland's ene- 
mies have enlisted one faction against another. 

Our Irish traveling salesman has lived in 
Canada two years and has acquired a taste for 
clean linen. The other man is soiled as to every 
garment in sight. When the latter leaves the 
car, the Canadian-Irishman says, "You will notice 
one thing in the west of Ireland. The people are 
not clean." No reference is made to our late 
companion, but he is an excellent proof of the 
truth of the statement. We have more proofs 
later. 

At Collooney we change cars for a two-mile 
transfer. We enter a "Ladies Only" compart- 
ment. There is an inch of dried mud on the floor 
and no cushions on the seats. We stand up for 
the short ride. 

At Charlestown the guard wires to Claremorris 



Westport and Connemara Country 229 

for two tea baskets. The baskets are handed to 
us at that station after we have boarded the 
Westport train. They cost a shilling each and 
contain a pot of tea, milk, sugar, two slices of 
buttered bread, and six sweet cakes. 

Westport, our destination, is just an over-night 
stop to enable us to take the celebrated coach ride 
to Leenane and Clifden. Lest we overlook it, we 
want to say now that the trip is not worth the 
while. Go as direct as you can from London- 
derry to Galway and you will save time and 
money and miss nothing worth seeing. 

In the first place, the best hotel in Westport is 
not clean. Its bed linen, towels and napkins had 
been used by other guests. You will have to take 
a jaunting car or an open coach for a thirty-mile 
ride with liberal chances in favor of rain. 

We choose the car because the expense is not 
much greater and the time saved is considerable. 
Besides, it is not at all certain that the coach will 
start. 

We are advised to take a preliminary ride to 
the beach. We assent and drive for miles along 
a weedy, rock-strewn shore which is called a 
beach. We drive back to the hotel, eat dinner 
and retire. Our appetite gave zest to the din- 
ner. Except the contents of the tea baskets, we 
had eaten nothing since our seven o'clock break- 
fast. 



230 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

We experience difficulty in fixing a price for 
everything connected with the hotel. A sort of 
head waiter hands us the register. We ask him 
the price of the room. He says he will see. He 
disappears for five minutes and, returning, gives 
us the rate. It is satisfactory. Then we ask 
him what a jaunting car to Leenane will cost us. 
Again he leaves the room and comes back with a 
figure. We accept. 

This process is repeated whenever any in- 
formation is needed, and the joke of it is that the 
timid head waiter is the proprietor of the hotel 
and dodges in and out simply to shift the respon- 
sibility for exorbitant rates to the shoulders of an 
imaginary employer. All this we learn later. 

Our room is a joke, but not a funny one. We 
take turns sitting in the only chair that will bear 
our weight. We commence to make demands 
and have the apartment fairly well furnished by 
bedtime. There is no lock on the door when we 
arrive, but we are promised that one will be put 
on later. 

A bulletin board at the end of the street reads : 

"A schedule specifying the toll, custom and 
duty claimed by the Marquis of Sligo on the 
several articles sold in the town of Westport 
according to the statute in that case provided." 

Then follows a list from which we quote, trans- 
lating the money into cents : 



Westport and Connemara Country 231 

Peddler's stand, 18 cents to 24 cents. 

Baker's stand, 24 cents. 

Hardware stand, 24 cents. 

Herring stand, 18 cents to 24 cents. 

Hatter's stand, 24 cents. 

and so on through all the trades and sorts of mer- 
chandise. 

Milch cows, per head, 12 cents. 

Dry cows and bullocks, 8 cents. 

Horse, 12 cents. 

Calf, ass or mule, 8 cents. 

Cabbage per cwt., 24 cents. 

and so on. 

This may not be operative now, but it was 
operative once and so recently that the sign is 
clear and distinct, and it makes the blood boil. 
This was the tribute exacted, not by the King, but 
by the Marquis of Sligo. 

Court sits to-morrow, and a factor and ten or a 
dozen tenants are grouped around the hotel en- 
trance arguing the terms of renewal for some 
expiring leases. There seems to be an irrecon- 
cilable difference of five shillings to the pound. 
The factor offers to reduce the old rate four 
shillings to the pound. The tenants are holding 
out for a nine-shilling reduction. Formerly the 
tenants would have had to pay any price de- 
manded. Now they have a right to appeal to the 



232 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

courts and, next to a ruction, an Irishman loves 
a lawsuit. One of the tenants frequently says 
with great unction, "Mebbe so ; but our solicitor 
informs us different, sorr." 

It is hard for an outsider to make head or tail 
of the matter, but in their earnestness, their 
finality of statement and their frequent return to 
the conflict, they remind one of some of Mc- 
Laren's inimitable descriptions of similar bicker- 
ings in Scotland. 

Later we draw one of the disputants aside and 
obtain an ex parte statement, which, of course, is 
biased and not to be accepted in toto. He tells 
us that the old leases expired two years ago, hav- 
ing run for thirty-five years. The old rentals 
were exorbitant, but the fathers of the present 
tenants had no option in those days. They must 
sign or leave, and to leave meant to leave Ireland, 
so they sigjied. Now, under the new law their 
sons can have their day in court. We did not 
hear the outcome. 

We return to our room, where we turn on the 
electric-light switch. It produces no effect. We 
ring for our smiling chambermaid. She was the 
one balm in Westport. Nothing could depress 
her. She informs us that the electric light does 
not "come on" until eight thirty. It never came 
on at all. But we did leave one permanent im- 
provement in that hotel. We refused to retire 



Westport and Connemara Country 233 

until the bolt was put on the door. They found 
one somewhere and the smiling maid and the 
boots put it on. 

We did not see a clean-faced child in Westport. 
A beautiful river flows through the center of the 
town, and you would think an occasional boy or 
girl would fall in and lose some of his or her 
dirt. If they ever fall in, they must be washed 
over the dam. They are never washed over the 
face. There is some palliation for poverty and 
disease, and we have even excused some cases of 
drunkenness, but accumulated and premeditated 
dirt has no reason for existence under the condi- 
tions at Westport. Dirt in a city may be un- 
avoidable, but here we have everything making 
it difficult to avoid water, and ninety per cent 
of the population, male and female, juvenile and 
adult, are unwashed. 

Our drive to Leenane might have been pretty 
under more favorable circumstances, but the 
weather was hazy and the horse was slow. We 
plodded along in an "inside" car past miles of 
rocky scenery. The driver sat in the back of 
the cart. The reins passed over my arms and I 
received more of the force of the blow when the 
reins were slapped down than the horse did. The 
fields by which we rode were so covered with 
stones as to seem irreclaimable. We passed many 



234 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

kishes of turf being carried into Westport, where 
it sells for twelve cents the kish. 

One couple were g.oing to town riding the same 
pony. The man was astride in front and the 
woman, sitting sidewise, clung to her jolting lord. 

"They go that way to funerals," said our 
driver, "and race home ten miles an hour." 

We passed some new red-roofed brick houses. 
These are put up for policemen. Five constables 
live in each house. They were made necessary 
by the prevalence of "cattle driving" in this part 
of Ireland. Outlaws stole stock to such an extent 
that no man could take a cow and calf to market 
in safety. The newspapers are full of accounts 
of the prosecution of this form of criminals. 
Since the patrol was established things are more 
secure. 

The mountains hereabouts are beautiful, but 
too misty for photographing. We had just set- 
tled back for an eventless ride, our horse was 
ambling along down a slight incline, when there 
was a scrambling of hoofs, we and the luggage 
were piled in the front of the car, the horse was 
down and the driver was in the middle of the 
road. We joined him promptly. Our horse had 
stepped on a pebble and stumbled. The driver 
was panic stricken. He started to wave his arms 
and yell at something a half mile down the road, 
which proved to be a sheep, which offered us no 



Westport and Connemara Country 235 

assistance. I was as ignorant of the proper pro- 
cedure as was the driver. I had fleeting recollec- 
tions of mounted policemen dismounting and sit- 
ting on horses' heads while other people unbut- 
toned their harness, but I did not want either end 
of that contract. We both tried to loosen the 
harness at the least exposed points and finally 
stepped back to take breath. Relieved of our at- 
tentions, the horse scrambled to his feet apparent- 
ly uninjured. I was disposed to congratulate all 
of us on the outcome, but the driver said tear- 
fully: 

"His knees is destroyed, sorr." 

I told him they were cast down, but not de- 
stroyed, and pointed out the trivial nature of the 
abrasions. The horse stepped ofif at his usual 
gait, which was never a fast one, but the driver 
kept moaning out his dread of what "the boss" 
would do to him, largely for the purpose of in- 
creasing his tip, as we afterward ascertained. 

We stopped at the first farm house and bathed 
the injured member, and the farmer gave the 
driver some salve which he applied. 

If we had been slow before the accident, we 
were positively glacial in our progress thereafter. 

About the time we would have reached 
Leenane had we gone afoot, we drove into a 
rain, which was also driving, and our last fifty 
minutes was through one of those cold little non- 



236 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



descript weather performances which the Scotch 
and Irish call a "mist." 

We had anticipated something of the sort be- 
fore starting and had stated our fears to the 
driver. He assured us that the clouds which we 
pointed out were "only the Spring tide, sorr. If 
it had intinded to rain, it wud be at it before now, 
sorr." 

Leenane is beautifully situated on the shores of 
Killery Bay, with high hills all around, cutting 
the landscape into fjords, mildly suggestive of 
Norway. Its hotel is better than the one at West- 
port, but parsimonious in the matter of towels. 

We will go on to Galway to-night to avoid 
being held in the Connemara country over Sun- 
day. The weather is threatening and we want to 
be nearer a railroad and "covered cars" before 
another storm breaks. We are now in County 
Galway, having crossed from Mayo in our jaunt- 
ing car. 

The veins of turf hereabouts are four or five 
feet thick and of good quality, as evidenced by 
the darker color. 

There is a small tweed factory in Leenane 
where the entire process of weaving can be 
studied. Edward VII visited this place in his 
"Seeing Ireland" trip and had a button on his 
coat tightened. Now they call themselves "Tweed 
makers to the Royal Household." 



Westport and Connemara Country 2^';^ 

The hotel property is mclosed by a hedge of 
fuchsias, five or six feet high, drenched with red 
bloom and so thick-set that a cat could not crawl 
through. 

On our way to Leenane we drove for a mile or 
more along the side of a mountain stream. The 
driver said that during a recent freshet the water 
covered the road and salmon were caught where 
we were driving. No action could be taken 
against anyone fishing in the public highway, but 
woe betide the unlicensed sportsman who caught 
a fish in the brook. If he was caught catching it, 
he would surely catch it. 

We spend the afternoon returning, the scowl 
of a frowning mountain and order a six o'clock 
car for Maams Cross, where we will catch the 
eight twenty-two train for Galway. The pret- 
tier drive is to Clifton, but under present weather 
conditions it would be impossible. 

Leenane is a popular resort, fairly well pat- 
ronized even in June. It is twelve miles from the 
nearest railway station. The other inmates of the 
hotel seem to be provided with bicycles and with 
the excellent roads hereabouts doubtless find the 
freedom from the noise and dirt of steam cars an 
added attraction. 

For a people whose principal food is the potato, 
the Irish are singularly unskilled in the art of 
cooking it. It is usually mashed and not well 



238 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

mashed, but full of lumps. The other vegetable 
is kale, dark green and coarser than at home. 

Our ride to Maams Cross took over two hours, 
mostly mist. We had rain coats, rugs and 
umbrellas and escaped a serious wetting, but we 
did not see much of "lovely Connemara." 

Our small luggage was placed in the "well" of 
the car, its only dry portion, and the suit cases 
were held on by straps and us. We had the mail 
cart for pacemaker all the way, so were sure of 
being on time for our train. 

It was beautiful to see the clouds forming 
about the mountain tops and slowly sinking into 
the valleys, but not so pleasant when they sank 
into our valley and condensed into "mist." 



Galway 239 



XXII 

Galway 



D 



T is almost eleven o'clock at night when 
we reach Galway. We follow our cus- 
tomary practice of stopping at the Rail- 
ways Hotel. As usual, the clerk is a 
woman. The hotel is comfortable, and abounds 
in wide halls and light shafts. There is enough 
waste space in the building to duplicate its sleep- 
ing rooms. 

Galway is the most picturesque town in Ire- 
land. It is also the most depressing if you have 
a weakness for worrying over other people's 
troubles and mismanagement. It has all the pos- 
sibilities of a prosperous commercial city, being 
the nearest seaport to America, only sixteen hun- 
dred and thirty-six miles from St, John's, twenty- 
three hundred and eighty-five miles from Boston 
and twenty-seven hundred miles from New York. 
It "almost" takes advantage of these natural con- 
ditions. Its harbor is "nearly" deep enough for 
the accommodations of large steamers. To-day a 
ship laden with wheat from Australia is lying 



240 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

in the roadstead waiting to be lightered of 
enough of her cargo to dock. 

There is fine salmon fishing on Lough Garrib. 
A canal connects the lough with the harbor. In 
the spawning season the waters are crowded with 
salmon. The "rights" were sold a generation ago 
to a Scotchman, Mr. Hallott, who receives twenty 
or twenty-five thousand dollars a year income 
from sportsmen. It costs a sovereign a day and 
two-thirds of your catch for a fishing license. 

We walk through the town and see an empty 
jaunting car. 

"What will you charge for a drive about 
town?" 

"I'll lave that to yer honor. If it was some, 
I'd make a bargain." 

"How would tuppence strike you?" 

"Yer honor's jokin', but I'd rather have the 
half crown ye'd be givin' me than the two shillins 
I'd be askin' ye." 

Finally we agree on a two shilling per hour 
rate, and climb up on opposite sides of the car. 
By this time we are adepts and scorn to hold on 
to the seat, no matter how rough the road. 

We soon discover that our driver is a stranger 
in Galway. He has brought in a fare from 
another town, and does not know Galway as well 
as we do. He cannot even take us to the post- 
office. 



Gal way 241 

By stopping several good-natured citizens we 
find our way about. Knowing that there are 
some sections of the old city wall standing, we 
ask to see them. He locates a weedy-looking 
ruin that he thinks "must be the old wall, sorr; 
it's been here a long while." 

After half an hour's drive, during which we 
pass the same corner four times, a more practical 
view supplants the humorous one, and we con- 
clude that if we really desire to see Galway there 
must be a change of drivers. 

We dismount at the hotel and give him two 
shillings. 

"An' sixpence for the driver," he pleads. 

I convince him that one and sixpence is all he 
will turn in to his employer, and he goes away, 
grumbling but satisfied. 

The oldest ruin in Galway is the Lion's Tower. 
It was built in 1278, and rebuilt in 1835 by 
Joseph Henry Bath. The surrounding wall was 
built in 1646. 

Galway not only has defaulted on her harbor 
and sold her salmon birthright for a mess of 
Scotch oats, but she has enough wasted water 
power to grind wheat for half of Ireland. There 
are twenty-one mills here with water power 
directly under their noses. Twenty of them are 
shut down. 

We stand on the bridge and look at the hun- 



242 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

dreds of spawning salmon. They are perfectly 
motionless, with their noses pointed upstream, 
and show beautifully in the clear water. They 
seem pretty numerous, but we are assured that 
this is an off-year. Some years they lie so close 
together that their sides do not get wet and it is 
hard to pull them out because they are wedged 
in so tightly. 

We hire another car and drive around the 
"ring" of the Claddagh. The Claddagh is an 
ancient fishing village adjoining the harbor. For- 
merly it was a distinct community, having its 
own mayor, called the "King of the Claddagh." 
Its people did not intermarry with the outer 
world, but, judging from their present appear- 
ance, the outer world had little cause to mourn. 

The Claddagh wedding ring is of gold and 
represents a heart supported by two hands. 
These ^re sold as souvenirs in the Galway shops. 
Like most fishermen, and sailors, the populace are 
superstitious. They are jealous regarding their 
fishing rights and tenacious in maintaining them. 

The women are usually barefooted and wear 
shawls and red petticoats. They lean over the 
half-doors of their shanties and gossip. These 
half-doors are characteristic of Irish cottages of 
the poorer class. 

There are no streets in the Claddagh. The 
houses face in every direction and look as though 




AN IRISH COLLEEN 



Galway 243 

they had been deposited by a flood or glacier. 

The "ring" is a semicircular sidewalk which 
incloses this haphazard group of buildings, and 
it is in turn inclosed by the driveway. 

Franciscan's Church and the Kew Bridge are 
as hard to find as the Holy Grail. No one in 
town ever heard of them, and yet they are promi- 
nently mentioned in the guide book. Some day 
we will organize an expedition and find these 
two hidden spots and, after burying proofs in the 
neighborhood, announce the discovery to the 
world. 

In the meanwhile, Galway grows on us and 
twines little tendrils around our hearts. Its 
people are typically Irish, although there is a 
world of pathos in the eyes of the children. 

Patriotism sometimes takes a form that calls 
for more stubborn courage than following your 
country's flag into battle. The soldier is bol- 
stered up by the approval and admiration of 
thousands. He is in the center of the stage, with 
an orchestra of artillery and spotlights of 
exploding bombs. 

The man who persists in living in his native 
land from pure love of the soil and in spite of 
all odds is your true patriot. He wins no one's 
approval, hardly his own. He does not know 
just why he stays, but he knows that to leave 
would mean a lingering heart-break. 



244 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

The tenants, sweating under exorbitant rack 
rents (now happily being done away with), say 
in defense of their fathers, who signed the leases : 
"What cud they do, sorr? They had to sign or 
lave Ireland." 

Many of the hustling younger generation are 
leaving, but there is an eloquent love of country 
expressed by those who stay and starve. 

The land-buying by the government has not 
yet reached Mayo and Galway, but they expect 
relief in a few years and are fighting in the 
courts for lower rents. 

Formerly it was "the lord's will be done," 
which, properly interpreted, meant "the tenants 
will (certainly) be done." Now the latter have 
at least a fighting chance. 

A slight indication of the attitude of the com- 
munity towards private property is found in the 
practice of keeping the Railway Hotel locked 
night and day. A porter admits properly identi- 
fied guests and lets them out, but the main door 
is always locked. 

St. Nicholas' Church contains the tomb of 
Lynch, mayor in 1493. It is adorned with the 
family crest, a lynx. The mayor's full name 
was James Lynch Fitz-Stephen, and the town 
has many memorials of him. His former resi- 
dence is known as Lynch's Castle, and is a fine 
type of fifteenth century shop and dwelling com- 



Galway 245 

bined. It is in good preservation and occupied 
on the ground floor by a grocery store. 

In St. Nicholas' Churchyard is a memorial per- 
petuating a very gruesome act of Spartan justice 
on Lynch's part. His son was one of several 
conspirators who planned to murder a ship's 
captain and steal the cargo. Being brought be- 
fore Lynch for trial, the son was condemned to 
death and executed, in spite of the pleas of 
friends and relatives. 

The tracery of the windows in St. Nicholas' is 
beautiful. Each of the three north windows has 
a different design. You can have an excellent 
view of the surrounding country from the tower, 
but the ascent is not . recommended to stout 
people. There are some wonderfully small spaces 
to squeeze through. 

We take the horse-tram to Salthill. We use 
the word "tram" because "car" over here in- 
variably means a jaunting car. 

Salthill has an excellent sandy beach with fine 
breakers, but there are no bathers and no bath- 
houses. Children are wading out a short dis- 
tance, but the adult desire for amusement finds 
satisfaction in hiring row boats or sailing craft. 
There is a ceaseless chorus of "Coom fer a punt, 
sir." Old women are selling cockles with a bless- 
ing added for a ha'-penny each. The natives eat 
them raw — the cockles, not the blessings. 



246 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Galway is an interesting but saddening example 
of shrinkage. In the process, its particles have 
disintegrated, and sightless old houses seem to 
stare at you from blind and moss-incrusted win- 
dows. While it has suffered some at the hands 
of besiegers, notably during Cromwell's attacks, 
most of its walls have crumbled before the guns 
of that most relentless of field marshals, Father 
Time, assisted by his chief of staff in the Con- 
nemara country, General Apathy. 

Shawls are universal among the middle and 
poorer classes of women in Ireland. They are 
bonnet, waist and two-thirds of the skirt. They 
cover a multitude of deficiencies in costume and 
look oppressively hot on a warm day. The pre- 
vailing color of these shawls in Galway is tan 
with a brown border, or brown with a tan border. 

We have seen just one set of "Galway" whis- 
kers in town. Their proud possessor was solicit- 
ing patronage for a Salthill sail-boat. 

Rain drove us in at five o'clock and we sat at 
our hotel window and watched the people, going 
about as usual, or standing still, absolutely un- 
disturbed by the shower. 

More confusion was added to the land ques- 
tion by a conversation with a gentleman in the 
hotel, who seemed intelligent and well informed, 
but was intensely partisan, i. e., Irish. This man 
says that the north of Ireland has the best of it, 



V* 


W '^M 


mfm^ 


41 


It ' J 


1 


l^-M'^ 




L: 


IP. PI B 


HH 


*. 


EmMj 


f 




H|,^^^^2 


F 




i^K ^ sHmviip'IIi '^hI 


B^muA 




IniK'' '"^^'H 


Hf 






m 



Galway 247 

and always has had ; that, anyhow, they are more 
Scotch than Irish; that there are more cases 
before the courts to-day on the subject of land 
values to be adjudicated than can be reached in 
ten or twelve years; and that the people have 
been wilfully deceived by a false hope and are 
worse off than ever. 

We will be five or six hours on the train to-day 
on our way to Kilkee. The prefix "kil" or "kill" 
means cell, cloister, or church. The other Irish 
prefix, "bal" or "bally," means town or village. 
In the prevalence of the latter you see a modest 
contrast to the tendency in some of our western 
states to stake out a bit of prairie and call it 
some "city" or other with prophetic optimism. 
Perhaps you also see the basic hopelessness and 
hope in each selection. 

We were serenaded last night. At least, we 
were innocent bystanders. A party of Galway 
citizens were going to America, and their friends 
came down to the Dublin train and sang a fare- 
well dirge expressive of grief at parting or at 
being left behind. It was a wild, sad song, and 
sounded very pathetic at three in the morning. 



248 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXIII 

Kilkee 



BIUR train starts at nine forty. At least, 
that is the schedule. It gets under way 
a little before ten. The first change is 

at Athenry, after a ride of twenty-eight 
minutes, and it is accomplished in the rain. 

This village was once a royal town and pos- 
sessed of a wall. Its only gleam of glory to-day 
is when the "Galway Blazers" assemble for their 
hunt. It has some thirteenth century ruins, 
notably those of a Dominican priory. It likewise 
possesses a nineteenth century ruin in the shape 
of a depot. The platform is not covered, and 
there are no porters to assist with the luggage. 

In seventeen minutes after leaving Athenry, 
we reach Ennis, where again we change cars. 
There are porters to help us at Ennis, but no 
shelter from the rain except within the waiting 
room. 

We change again at Moyasta. Much of this 
changing of cars is due to the time of year. 
July first there will be through trains to Kilkee. 



Kilkee 249 

There are some advantages connected with this 
happy-go-lucky way of running trains. At Ennis 
we wanted two lunch baskets made up. Our 
train was already five minutes late, but the depot 
master sent a porter for the baskets and held 
the train another five minutes for their prepara- 
tion. With some oranges and bananas added to 
our menu, we lunched quite comfortably as our 
train annihilated space at the rate of twenty miles 
an hour. 

Near Athlone is the scene of Goldsmith's 
"Deserted Village," but Ireland is so full of 
deserted villages that we do not break our jour- 
ney to visit "Auburn, loveliest village of the 
plain." Its real name is Lissoy. 

Last evening, when ordering this morning's 
breakfast in Galway, we mentioned sole. The 
head waiter cautioned us against eating fish for 
Monday breakfast. He said none was caught on 
Sunday and the Saturday's catch was not con- 
sidered palatable Monday. Shades of cold 
storage and spirits of ammonia, what do you 
think of that? 

The effort to perpetuate the Gaelic language 
still continues. The station names are in English 
and Gaelic, and some advertisements are in both 
languages. Most newspapers in western Ireland 
have a column or more in Gaelic. 

At Moyasta we cross thirty feet of cinder plat- 



250 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

form, with water standing in pools. Our train 
is waiting for us, although we are half an hour 
late. With rubbers, rain coats and umbrellas, we 
defy the elements and are revealed as tourists to 
the dripping natives, who scorn the idea of 
shelter. 

If you want to be puffed with a sense of your 
own importance, land at an Irish summer resort 
before the season opens. Throwing a traveler 
among those hotel runners is like tossing a chunk 
of meat into a cage of famished lions. 

Our stammering Boots, who was likewise the 
hall porter at the Galway hotel, was consulted as 
to the best stopping place at Kilkee, just as our 
train pulled out. He said, "M-m-moores is on 
the b-b-b" — and we never knew whether the 
missing word was "bay" or "bum." Reasoning 
that he would hardly use such a pronounced 
Americanism as the latter, we elected to try 
Moore's. When we landed at Kilkee in a heavy 
shower, five hotels were represented at the 
station, but no Moore. 

We asked the clamoring mob for Moore's, and 
they made a converging rush for us. 

"Thry the Victoria, sorr." 

"The West End is the best, sorr." 

"I'll take you to Moore's, sorr," said an un- 
labeled, unshaven porter. 

"How far is it ?" we asked. 



Kilkee 251 

"About five minutes, sorr" (the eternal, un- 
wavering distance). 

"Have you a covered machine?" we asked, 
meaning a cab. 

He procured one and we drove to the remotest 
end of town, past all of the other hotels, and 
found Moore's. 

No one was in the hotel office. Some noise on 
our part brought a woman on the scene. Evi- 
dently no preparation had been made for guests 
so early in the season. The location was at the 
tip end of town, remote from the depot. 

We faced to driver and sternly asked, "Now, 
where is there a decent hotel near the station?" 

He mentioned the Royal Marine, and we drove 
back the whole dripping length of the town. 
One of the rejected porters met us at the door, 
with a smile, and said, "I thought ye'd be back." 

We were assigned to a comfortable room with 
a beautiful view of the bay. The scene would 
arouse more enthusiasm were we not so damp 
ourselves. 

This is not the largest hotel we have been in. 
but its rooms are numberless. We blaze our way 
to the office and back, and locate our bedroom 
firmly in our minds before taking a walk on the 
beach. The hotel illuminates with candles. The 
cake of soap has nearly reached its final rub. 
We long ago learned to carry our own soap. The 



252 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

foreign hotel has progressed to the point of 
furnishing soap to its guests, but has not yet 
adopted the wild American extravagance of 
placing a neatly wrapped cake in the room of 
each arrival. 

The house is being re-papered and re-plumbed 
throughout, and as it is clean, it should make a 
fair bid for the season's visitors. It is well 
located for a view of the bay, and is close to the 
station. 

Our walk through the slackening rain took us 
about a mile around the shore. The town is built 
on a crescent, and the coast is marked by pic- 
turesque black rocks with breakers dashing over 
them. 

The rain increases and we return to our hotel 
and study its interior. Within its parlor are 
those two gems of our nursery days, "Wide 
Awake" and "Fast Asleep." We had not seen 
these pictures for years, and supposed all copies 
of them had been lost or destroyed. The room 
also contains an Stager e (are you old enough to 
remember them?) with shells about its base and 
majolica shepherdesses on its shelves. The head- 
less condition of the latter gives the room a 
Cromwellian atmosphere. 

Kilkee must be attractive during the season. 
The beach is magnificent, but the bathhouses 



Kilkee 253 

seem inadequate. Probably they use bath wagons 
when the crowds are here. 

The jaunting car drivers are possessed of an 
imperturbable good nature. 

"Have a car, sorr?" 

"No" (rather short and surly). 

"It's a grand day, sorr," and they touch their 
hats respectfully, making you ashamed of your 
ill nature. 

In the morning we take an hour and a half's 
drive around the coast and are well repaid. 
There are some wonderful things in cliff archi- 
tecture hereabouts. 

Ireland is Hke an immense saucer washed by 
the Atlantic. The ocean is a careless dishwasher 
and the edges are badly nicked. 

We see Bishop's Island and the ruins of an early 
oratory. The story goes that a bishop had stored 
some food on the island and fled there during a 
famine. After the famine was over and the 
bishop's food was gone he found that the sea 
had widened the distance between him and the 
mainland, and, unable to procure anything to eat, 
he slowly starved. In proof of the story there is 
the oratory with absolutely no food in it. 

Much more authentic are the tales of awful 
shipwrecks among these merciless rocks. 

The Cave of Kilkee is best seen from a boat if 



254 Three Weeks hi the British Isles 

you have the time. The same is true of Puffing 
Hole and all of the grand coast scenery. 

Vegetation in Ireland is irrepressible. It grows 
on top of stone fences, and not only grows, but 
blooms ! 

In a second-class compartment on the Kilrush 
train we are saluted by our disappointed porter 
of the night before. He leans in at the window, 
and, while not in the best of spirits, still gives 
evidence of some potations. 

*T had the plisure of driving a gintleman and 
his wife from Chicaggy tin years ago. I had my 
own horse and car thin, sorr. Now I have to 
depind on odd jobs carrying luggage, sorr." 

Silence on our part. 

"I was sorry not to have had the plisure of 
carrying yours last night, sorr." 

More silence. 

"Well, good by, sorr, and a plisant journey to 
you and the lady." 

"Good by." 

He intimates a desire to drink our health and 
to give us his blessing for a consideration, but 
we are scanning our investments in this line more 
closely. The last "luck o' God" that we bought 
of these hangers-on brought on yesterday's 
shower, so we are dealing no more with middle- 
men. 

It is low tide between Kilkee and Moyasta, and 




ALONG THE KILKEE COAST 



Kilkee 255 

many boats lie tilted in the mud, waiting for the 
water to return. 

At Moyasta we linger for a long while for the 
train to Kilrush. If they would only change the 
name of Moyasta to Kiltime it would harmonize 
with its neighboring towns and they could then 
call it the Kilkee, Kiltime and Kilrush Railway. 

At Kilrush we take a car to the dock and go 
aboard the Limerick steamer half an hour before 
sailing time. This enables us to order and eat a 
wholesome lunch of chops, bread, butter and tea 
before the boat pulls out. 

We are on the River Shannon, which here at 
its mouth is as wide as a bay. There was no 
boat to Limerick yesterday. The schedule is so 
uncertain that we telephone from Kilkee, to be 
sure that there would be one to-day. 



256 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXIV 

The Shannon River and Limerick 



CATTERY ISLAND is within half a 

mile of us. It has on it the first round 

tower we have seen. The guide book 

says it is unique in having an entrance 
on the ground floor. There are about one hun- 
dred round towers in Ireland. Some theorists 
say they were belfries. Others claim that the 
small windows indicate that they were watch 
towers or forts. Whatever they were, they are 
the only distinctive contributions of early Ireland 
to architecture. 

There are many ruins on Scattery Island and 
much of historical matter ornamented with 
legendary embroidery. 

At Tarbert we exchange passengers by means 
of a rowboat. Eight or ten men and women 
jump into the tossing craft, into which a scissors- 
grinding machine is also lowered. A small, 
shaggy dog scampers back and forth and super- 
intends the transfer. 



The Shannon River and Limerick 257 

We started with the sun shining, but a shower 
drives us from the deck as we near Redgap. 

This part of Ireland, between Kilrush and 
Limerick, in an arc reaching to Ennis, has no 
railroad, but depends upon river boats for trans- 
portation. 

We tie up for a long time at Kildysart, where 
there is a pontoon pier, heavily laden with freight 
to be taken to Limerick. Kildysart is the port 
for a large area of country. Five pigs, loudly 
protesting, are added to our third-class passenger 
list. 

We pass the mouth of the Dee River and, a 
little later, the estuary of Lough Fergus, filled 
with islands. - Beagh Castle, on our right, is 
an impressive ruin. In vivid contrast thereto rise 
the white walls of Castle Dromore, the residence 
of the Lord of Limerick. 

Our last sight before entering the busier part 
of the river is the ruin of an old castle founded 
by the Knights Templar and blown up in 1691 
by William III. This marks the terminus of the 
grounds of Lord Emly, thickly timbered and with 
a fine mansion at its eastern extremity. 

We tie up at five ten at the Limerick quay, and 
deceived by the name, take a jaunting car to the 
Railway Hotel. It proves to be a cheap, unde- 
sirable hostelry. The rain is falling in torrents. 
The railroad station is half a block away. We 



25S Three Weeks in the British Isles 

hail a bus for Cruise's Royal Hotel and, arriving 
there, find ourselves again in neat metropolitan 
surroundings. 

Limerick is a modern business community with 
about thirty-eight thousand inhabitants. It is 
Roman Catholic in religion. All of Ireland is ex- 
cepting Ulster. Its four and a half million people 
number less than one-fourth Protestants. There 
are almost as many Presbyterians as adherents of 
the Church of England. 

Ireland sends one hundred and three members 
to Parliament, of whom eighty are "agin the gov- 
ernment." 

Limerick was built in sections in the eleventh 
and fifteenth centuries. General Patrick Sarsfield 
is the local hero, for he withstood the attacks of 
William III in 1690 and only surrendered upon 
terms fair to the Roman Catholics. We do not 
know how well these terms were observed, but 
we do know that Limerick is called the City of 
the Violated Treaty. The surrender was signed 
on the Treaty Stone, which has an honored place, 
properly marked, at the west end of Thomond 
Bridge across the River Shannon. 

Limerick is in marked contrast with Galway. 
Its shops are bright and modern and its citizens 
step off as briskly as Americans. Its streets are 
clean and wide. 

We arose early, breakfasted and started on a 



The Shannon River and Limerick 259 

drive through the city, stopping for a minute at 
St. John's Cathedral. Mass was being celebrated, 
so we just looked in at Benzoni's beautiful statue 
of the Virgin Mary and tiptoed out. 

Mistaking our purpose, the driver next took us 
to St. Mary's Church instead of the Episcopal 
Cathedral of the same name. 

At the modest little Catholic church we wit- 
nessed the termination of a wedding. The red- 
faced groom helped the smiling bride into a car- 
riage and they drove off amid the cheers of the 
male contingent. 

Then we drove to the Protestant St. Mary's, if 
you will permit the expression. Protestant 
churches are inconvenient in that they save souls 
during office hours only. The Catholics have no 
close season for fighting his Satanic majesty and 
their churches are always open. 

We finally found a grave digger who located 
a verger, who showed us through St. Mary's 
Episcopal Cathedral. It has a fine churchyard 
with large old shade trees. Parts of the building 
go back to the twelfth century. The site has 
been holy ground since the fifth century, but the 
original building was destroyed a thousand years 
ago. 

The present church is badly lighted. The 
carved oak misericorde seats are very interesting. 
They permitted the monks to rest their elbows 



26o Three Weeks in the British Isles 

on shelves when weary with too long standing, 
A cannon was mounted on the battlements of the 
church in 1690 and a skilfully directed shot from 
it, nearly proved fatal to King William. 

We must have been liberal in feeing the grave- 
digger, for he waited for us as we came out, 
and asked us if we had ever heard of Mr. Hart-- 
ley. We said we had not. 

"He was the last man buried here. He was 
one of the most beloved men in Limerick. He 
has only been buried about a fortnight, and I 
have had to move him. He's uncovered now, and 
I thought you might like to see him." 

We plead a pressure of other engagements and 
decline. 

We drive over Thomond Bridge for a look at 
the Treaty Stone, and attempt a photograph in 
the rain. King John's Castle is at the east end of 
the bridge. It was built in the reigji of that luck- 
less monarch. On the side facing the river are 
many scars, healed with brick, showing where the 
shots of the besiegers struck during the various 
sieges. It is now used as barracks. 

We depart for Killarney on the ten fifteen traia. 
You must watch the hotel porter very closely or 
he will label your hand luggage and put it into 
the baggage car. This is not desirable, as it 
means delay and a possible loss of luggage. In 
spite of our instructions, we frequently rescue 



The Shannon River and Limerick 261 

our suit cases from the van in the nick of time. 
This occurred at Limerick. 

Memories of the hotel at Limerick crowd our 
minds. It was built in 1791 and is commencing 
to show its age. They have added electric lights 
and plumbing, ltd., but the up and down stairs 
landings are as they were. In getting to your 
room you follow the line of greatest resistance. 
There is no lift, and that fact helps some in get- 
ting up and down stairs speedily. 

On the train we pass considerable waste 
ground and here and there fields inclosed by 
stone fences or hedges. Many sheep are feeding 
on the hillsides. The roadbed is excellent, but the 
weather is exasperating^ It alternates rain and 
shine in fifteen-minute instalments. 

The compartment is shared by two ministers of 
different types, one with a silk tile and the other 
with a shovel hat. We lose the latter at Ardagh 
together with its owner. 

After Newcastle West our train takes to hill 
climbing. We get a fine view of some truly 
emerald landscape. It is the first time we have 
looked down from a train in Ireland. 

We pass through some cuts in the solid rock 
almost Alpine in their ruggedness before reach- 
ing Barnagh. Then we descend again to the 
valley. 

At Kilmora the other minister leaves us. In 



262 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

brushing his silk hat with his sleeve, his celluloid 
cuff embarrasses him by popping out. He is a 
fine, gentle-looking old priest with thin, white 
locks and spare frame. If his fight against the 
world and the devil has been as successful as that 
against flesh, he is assured of paradise. 

The scenery after Kilmora is wooded and hilly. 
At Listowel we take on a poor insane woman in 
charge of two officers. They are taking her to 
the asylum at Killarney. There is a good deal of 
drunkenness at this station, but that may be due 
to the fact that it is market day. One wild-look- 
ing young man, the worse for liquor, lurched into 
a first-class compartment and rode to the next 
town, where he was dislodged by the guard. 
Probably some of the heavy penalties for riding 
without a railroad ticket will be imposed in his 
case. 

We change cars at Tralee about half-past one. 
We could have reached Killarney on time, but 
waited for five minutes outside the town. The 
station agent has a weak heart and any unusual 
occurrence might prove fatal. 










THE TREATY STONE 



Killarney 263 



D 



XXV 

Killarney 

HE train finally pulls into the station be- 
tween hills dripping with mist. It is a 
beautiful picture, but baffling to the 
artist who paints with Sol's rays. The 
most welcome sight to our eyes is a low, rakish- 
looking building with the sign displayed "Great 
Southern Laundry." It is an adjunct of the Rail- 
way Hotel. We often wonder what travelers did 
for comforts in Ireland before the railroads built 
their big hotels. Of course the answer is, they 
did without them. And the country did without 
travelers to a large extent. 

We almost went to the wrong hotel. The rail- 
road conducts two establishments at Killarney. 
The New Hotel is less expensive and caters more 
to family trade and permanent boarders. It is 
clean and comfortable and less showy than the 
Great Southern Hotel. We selected the latter 
because of our short stay and the need for some 
rapid fire laundry work. Our room is only two 
dollars a day and the appointments are first class. 



264 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

We have a three o'clock luncheon in the 
restaurant, where meals are served at all hours. 
It is raining, but that has happened ten or twelve 
times to-day and we are used to it. 

After lunch we drive through the grounds of 
Lord Kenmare. The foliage and trees are beau- 
tiful. Everything is wild but kept under control. 
The growth is the natural vegetation of the neigh- 
borhood with the hand of the landscape gardener 
laid gently here and there. 

We are on our way to Ross Castle. Four times 
at luncheon and twice on our drive the fact leaks 
out that this was the last castle in Ireland to sur- 
render to Cromwell in 1652. It was probably the 
last one he went after. 

Ross Castle is a beautiful ivy-covered ruin, and 
as we are rowed out on the smooth surface of the 
Lower Lake, its reflection in the water doubles 
its charm. 

It was considered absolutely invulnerable from 
the land side, therefore Cromwell wasted no time 
on that proposition but attacked it from the rear, 
the lake, with ships. An old prophecy had de- 
clared Castle Ross impregnable until ships should 
surround it. The garrison regarding the prophecy 
as fulfilled, refused to strike a blow, and thus 
again, as when Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, 
was superstition more potent than powder. 

We row over to Mouse Island filled with 



Killarney 265 

arbutus, which in the Killarney neighborhood de- 
velops into trees. It is the glossy green of the 
arbutus and holly, mingled with other vegetation, 
that gives to these hills their myriad shades of 
color. That is the one unsurpassable charm of 
Killarney. There are deeper lakes set in higher 
mountains all over the world, but nowhere else 
such marvelous foliage. 

Our boat glides by acres of white and yellow 
pond lilies and pokes its nose into rocky caves, 
sculptured by water into queer skull-like forma- 
tions. One island is called O'Donoghue's Pul- 
pit. An O'Donoghue built Ross Castle, but I 
doubt if any of them ever preached from this 
pulpit. 

We drive back through part of Kenraare's six- 
thousand-acre park. It was once farm land, but 
is now merely pleasure ground. Occasionally a 
startled deer peers at us from the underbrush and 
scampers back into the forest. There is enough 
timber growing here to make the future Lords of 
Kenmare lumber kings. 

Our road leads through the demesne and past 
a long abandoned copper mine. Hearing the 
sound of a hammer on rock, we inquire and find 
that tests are being made with a view to reopen- 
ing the mine. 

We wish we could describe the peculiar beauty 
of the hills around Lough Leane, the lowest of 



266 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Killamey's beauteous triptych of lakes. This 
charm is in its softness of coloring, as already 
stated. Lough Leane is the largest of the three 
lakes, covering five thousand acres. Its greatest 
length is five miles and its greatest width is three. 

Thackeray in his "Irish Sketch Book" dwells 
lovingly on the beauties of Killarney and takes a 
dig at the man who thinks he can see the whole of 
the lakes in a day. 

We are giving the district a day and a half in 
order to escape Thackeray's disapproval, and 
when we add to that the increased facilities for 
travel, improved roads and greater energy at our 
command, we feel that we are at least "seeing" 
Killarney. To live here long enough to absorb 
all of its beauty would defy an octogenarian. 
Skimming over it hastily is a sin that carries its 
own punishment, and we can assure every loyal 
Irishman in County Kerry that our hearts will 
dwell in Killarney long, after our bodies leave it. 
Our memories will take on a brighter hue when- 
ever we think of its dewy, sparkling beauty. 

Thus much we wrote after half a day on the 
shores of Lough Leane, and all that we felt and 
suffered the next day in the Gap of Dunloe shall 
not erase a word of it. 

It may interest those who are looking for 
Hibernianisms to know that Ross Island is a 



Killarney 267 

peninsula and can be reached in a jaunting car, 
except during unusually high water. 

Our boatman's farewell was truly of the soil. 
"A plisant journey to ye, my lady, and I hope I 
may have the plisure of servin' ye agin." 

The town of Killarney once worked for a liv- 
ing and had iron smelters and foundries, but now 
it has tasted the joys of "easy money" and its 
fifty-five hundred people depend on tourists for 
a livelihood. 

The energy of Killarney has been sapped. It 
does not want to appear ungrateful to Providence 
by making an effort on its own part. Aside from 
wood carving, which is a recognized by-product 
of all tourist-supported communities, there is 
very little industry here except that of cajoling 
the wide-eyed sightseer. 

After you have selected your own bank of de- 
posit in the shape of a hotel, it is great fun to see 
a new traveler alight in the middle of the road. 
He or she instantly becomes the center of a 
clamorous mob of hotel runners, car drivers and 
post-card venders. The Irish are true sportsmen, 
and the losers seem to get as much fun out of the 
chase as the one who captures the brush, in this 
case typified by a much labeled suit case. 

Now for a prolonged groan. Such a day ! We 
started for the Gap of Dunloe in a jaunting car. 
It soon commenced to rain. We peered from 



268 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

under our umbrellas at the ruins of Aghadoe with 
its fragments of castle, church and round tower. 
These are the oldest ruins in Ireland. We do not 
stop, as none of them has a roof. 

We pass John Lynch's haunted house. None 
of the guide books tells its story, because it proba- 
bly is not true. However, it is interesting and 
will serve to offset some of the dry facts in other 
parts of this narrative. 

John Lynch was a land agent sent up from 
Dublin to collect the rents. As no one had any 
money, he evicted all of the tenants between here 
and the town, thirty-five in number, and bought 
them tickets to America. So far he seems to 
have been a blessing in disguise. Then, having 
no tenants, Lynch found himself out of a job 
and was himself evicted. He went to America, 
and his former tenants would not let him land. 
Just how they prevented it is not clear, but give 
thirty-five Irish families six months' start and 
they would probably control the politics of any 
American port they might select. 

Lynch returned to Killarney and was so de- 
pressed by the black looks of his neighbors that 
he committed suicide. Pretty poor stuff for a 
land agent! But that did not end his troubles. 
He was shut out of the lower regions also. 
Whether because of a preponderance of Irish 
vote there or not, the historian does not say. 



Killarney 269 

Anyhow, the devil gave him some fagots and 
matches and told him to go back to Killarney and 
start his own fire. So every night at midnight 
you can see a light in John Lynch's house, where 
its luckless occupant is trying to start his fire. 

"Did you ever see the light?" we asked. 

"Bless ye," said our ingenuous driver, "I'm 
niver up that late." 

We reach Kate Kearney's cottage in a drench- 
ing rain. We are eight and a half miles from 
Killarney and six miles from the head of the up- 
per lake, and the latter distance must be made on 
horseback. 

The crowd waits half an hour in this cottage, 
which is always referred to impressively, but 
which is simply a roadside souvenir store and bar- 
room combined. Our driver assures us that this 
is a "clearing rain" and that when it stops there 
will be no more bad weather to-day. 

Finally it slacked down to a shower and we 
started on horseback astride a pair of farm horses 
for our six-mile ride through the Gap of Dunloe. 
There are purple and blue mountains towering to 
the left and right of us. The purple shade is due 
to a mineral deposit at the summit. The craggy 
steeps would have been impressive under better 
weather conditions or with a more comfortable 
conveyance, but those nags of ours, not from 



270 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

coltishness but because of mere perversity, would 
not walk but insisted on jogging. 

B. had long before cast prudence to the winds 
and the reins on her steed's neck. She was strug- 
gling to sit sideways, hold a rain coat over her- 
self and camera, carry an open umbrella and keep 
her hat on straight. I had nothing to hold but an 
umbrella and my temper, but I was never busier 
in my life. 

In spite of my watchfulness, my horse would 
occasionally break into one of those trip-hammer 
jogs and B.'s nag would instantly join in. B. 
would grab at her hat and say at each drop of 
her horse's hoofs : 

"Don't — make — him — trot — I — can't — stay — 
on." 

And I would reply, "D'you — think — I'm — a — 
blithering — idiot — I'm — trying — to — stop — 'im." 

It was bad enough to be shaken like a corn pop- 
per, without being suspected of aiding and abet- 
ting in the transaction. 

Just why the excursion is broken at Kate 
Kearney's cottage is not apparent, unless, like the 
benevolent cannibal and the missionary, the idea 
is to make the tourist reach as many natives as 
possible. It would perhaps be more exact to say : 
Let as many natives as possible reach the tourist. 

That is not the worst of it. The ride would be 
uncomfortable under the most favorable circum- 



Killarney 271 

stances. The horses either walk or jog. One 
means monotony and the other means torture. 
You can pick out all of the riders as they sit at 
dinner in the evening. They are not happy. But 
add to the other discomforts the different forms 
of beggary you encounter and the peddlers of 
illicit whisky, or "mountain dew," as they call 
their potations. With a bottle of goat's milk 
under one arm and a demijohn of "potheen" 
under the other, they run out from their shanties 
every half mile of the way. 

If you do not wish to buy, they hold to your 
stirrups and trot along by you and beg for pen- :' 
nies. If you are polite in your refusals, they are 
persistent. If you are firm, they grow abusive. 

A man with a bugle and another with a cannon 
awake the echoes at different points of the road 
and almost scare you from your horse and de- 
mand payment. 

As you near the Black Valley the women are 
more forlorn looking and more importunate. 

"Shure, ye'll soon be goin' back to Ameriky 
where there is plenty and ye'll niver miss a penny ^ 
fer poor Mary Sullivan here in the Black Val-' 
ley." 

The ride dims your good impressions of the 
day before. You do not get a glimpse of the 
Lakes of Killarney for hours. As substitutes a 
wild little stream tears along by the road and 



2.^2 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

there are five ponds, dignified by the name of 
lakes. Into one of these St. Patrick cast the chest 
containing the last of Ireland's snakes. 

The Black Valley is not so black as it is 
painted. It is misty and dark, but so is the Gap. 
It looks like excellent farming country. The 
sun only shines there a few days in the year. 

The thousands of acres comprised in the hills 
and mountains about Killarney would make feed- 
ing ground for countless sheep and cattle, but 
they are all given over to wild deer and boars by 
the lord who owns them. 

And now for the crowning imposition. We 
have paid the man who owns the horses and who 
walked beside us all the way the price agreed on 
and added a sixpence for the discomfort of the 
trip, of which discomfort we had more than two- 
thirds. He wants a larger tip. We walk away 
and leave him. Please do not consider us miserly. 
These men are prosperous farmers in the neigh- 
borhood and are doing this on an agreed schedule. 
That, however, is not the last straw. We are re- 
quired to pay a toll of one shilling each for walk- 
ing the final two hundred yards through the un- 
improved grounds of some petty proprietor. 

It is the only case that we recall in all of our 
travels where extortion is practiced or sanctioned 
by the nobility. The ticket reads "Gearhameen" 
and represents no exchange of equal values. 



' Killarney 273 

Some one owns that shore of the lake and you 
must pay his price in order to reach your boat. 

Most of the sixpences or shillings which you 
pay for entering private grounds represent but a 
small portion of the outlay of the proprietor in 
maintaining his property. At any rate, they are 
voluntary payments. A way of retreat is open. 
You need not purchase the pleasure unless you 
desire it. At Gerhameen you have a tollgate 
in front of yoii and the Gap of Dunloe behind 
you. The only wonder is that the charge is not 
half a crown, but they have probably calculated 
to a nicety what the traffic will bear. 

All of these things make us advise you strong- 
ly that unless you can wait for a bright day, and 
that may mean weeks in this region, leave the 
Gap of Dunloe out of your Killarney plans and 
substitute the delightful car rides in the neigh- 
borhood of the lakes. 

This is the way we sing "Killarney" now : 

"Buy Killarney's lakes and fells, 
Buy Killarney's big hotels, 
Buy Killarney's cars and guides, 
Buy its jolty horseback rides." 

When nearing the end of our equestrian ride 
we noticed a shanty without chimney or window. 
Such buildings are not unusual, but this one 
looked so forlorn that we asked who lived there. 



274 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

The guide said that it was a man ninety-six years 
of age whose sons were in America. The boys 
send him money to Hve on. They tried to induce 
him to join them or to Hve in one of the more 
comfortable houses in the neighborhood, but he 
would not budge from the hut where he had lived 
all his life and where his old wife had died 
twenty years before: A people so governed by 
sentiment as the Irish cannot be handled by the 
rules of logic or the laws of political economy. 

The hotel sent a very good luncheon by the 
boatmen, but we had to eat it in a crowded shel- 
ter. The guests who were making the trip in the 
opposite direction were already in possession of 
the single long table. 

We gave most of the food to the boatmen, and 
went down to the landing. An American flag 
was floating from the stern of our craft. Bar- 
ring the intermittent showers, our ride over the 
three lakes and the long connecting stream was 
delightful. There are fourteen miles of smooth 
water, with just a dash of excitement at the 
rapids under the Weir Bridge at the Meeting of 
the Waters. This passage was rendered more 
difficult by the low water. The boat ahead of 
us lodged twice on the rocks, to the consterna- 
tion of its five or six passengers; but we floated 
through without mishap. 

There is much wild scenery on both shores, 



Killarney 275 

but the superlative charm is ever in the coloring. 
The purple blooms of the new heather blend w^ith 
the light green of the arbutus. 

There are many islands and some queer rock 
formations. One group resembles a capsized 
boat and has a story even more trivial than some 
we have repeated. 

Landing is made at Ross Castle, where a car 
awaits us. Our Gap excursion has been such a 
disappointment that we conclude to drive to 
Muckross Abbey before returning to the hotel. 
This is on the Muckross estate, formerly owned 
by Mr. Herbert, one time Chief Secretary for 
Ireland. It is now the property of Lord Ardilaun. 

The abbey was founded in 1340. An abbey is 
an abbot's church. A minster is a monastery. 
A cathedral is a cathedra, or bishop's throne. 
This may be superfluous information, but it is in 
line with our policy of telling the things which 
we discovered on our trip. 

Muckross was suppressed in 1542, renovated 
in 1602, and restored in 1626. Then came Crom- 
well in 1652, and what we see to-day, except for 
the moss, is what he left of it. 

He did not destroy the stone tracery of the 
windows, but he spared no pains when it came to 
the stained glass. 

There are many interesting old graves, if you 
enjoy that sort of thing. Here are buried 



276 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

O'Donoghues and MacCarthy Mors whose an- 
cestors were kings of Munster before St. Patrick 
was born. 

The same people founded Muckross Abbey and 
Blarney Castle. It is quite probable that the 
Blarney Stone was originally a gravestone. At 
least, no one can equal the Irish when it comes to 
carving eloquent epitaphs. For example, here 
are four lines from the tombstone of the Mac- 
Carthy Mor who died in 1808 : 

"What more could Homer's most illustrious verse, 
Or pompous Tully's stately prose rehearse. 
Than what this monumental stone contains, 
In Death's embrace, MacCarthy Mor's remains ?" 

There is an irrepressible ivy which had its 
roots cut away years ago and which continues to 
live on sustenance derived from the walls and 
drains of the building. 

The old bell is gone. It was submerged in 
Lough Leane for over a century and found in 
1750. It disappeared again and has never been 
seen since. 

In the center of the quadrangle bounded by the 
cloisters is a yew tree, said to be the largest in 
the world. It was planted when the abbey was 
founded, and will soon be six hundred years old. 
It is regarded with superstitious veneration by 
the people. They think that the tree will bleed 



Killarney 277 

if cut, and that anyone who injures it will die 
within the year. This results in a lack of needed 
attention in the way of trimming. 

The sun's rays striking an old notch in one of 
the cloister walls marked the hour of noon for 
the monks. 

The kitchen, refectory and dormitory are 
plainly indicated but fast falling into ruin. 

A long avenue of beeches shows the former 
road to the abbey. 

We drive to Dinish Island, upon which is a 
model cottage where refreshments may be pro- 
cured. The grounds about the cottage are filled 
with vegetation of every kind. Trees supposed 
to be indigenous to the tropics grow here the 
year round. 



278 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXVI 
Coaching to Glengariffe 



HIORTUNATELY we spoke to the hall 
porter regarding seats on the Glen- 
^^^ gariffe coach when we first arrived. 
The seats are all "booked," and guests 
who come out of the hotel with luggage, expect- 
ing to take pot luck, will stay over another day 
or ride in jaunting cars. 

The coach is a motor coach. These have been 
introduced quite recently, and excite sarcastic 
comment from the car drivers and their friends. 

Before the hour of departure, people from 
other hotels dash up in cars or busses and say 
they have booked passage days ago, but they get 
no seats. There are fifteen seats and every one 
is occupied. 

Before we leave, a military escort marches to 
the crossing in front of us and brings its guns 
to a salute. A carriage drives up and a gentle- 
man in frock coat and silk hat alights. In a few 
minutes the performance is repeated. Two 
judges have arrived. They will open court in 



Coaching to Glengariffe 279 

Killarney to-day and try some contested election 
cases. Whether the escort is intended as a 
dignity or a defense, we do not know. 

The coach starts at ten. It is flagged at the 
gateway of the Lake Hotel. Two ladies with 
luggage are waiting. They may still be waiting, 
for all the assistance given them. Just imagine 
such transportation arrangementv^^ in a country 
where time is of any importance ! The ladies go 
back to their hotel for at least twenty-four hours. 

One man whose business necessitated his going 
to-day, and who could not get on the coach, 
started in a jaunting car. 

After the second mile it commenced to rain 
hard. Half way to Parknasilla, while we were 
stopping at a wayside refreshment stand, the car 
caught us. Its passenger looked so drenched 
that one row of four in the coach consented to 
add him to their section, and he squeezed in. 
Naturally, being the best natured, they were also 
the plumpest passengers, and they were very 
much crowded. 

At Parknasilla four people stood smiling and 
expectant as we came up. They had tipped 
everyone in sight and were shaking hands with 
some friends when the news was broken to them 
that the coach was full. 

It was amusing to see the quiet but emphatic 
debate on the subject between our driver and the 



28o Three Weeks in the British Isles 

hall porter. Two Irishmen of their type will 
hiss invectives at each other, with an outward 
calm that would render them unobserved five feet 
away. In Italy two men discussing the weather 
will make much more disturbance. 

The expurgated dialogue was something like 
this: 

"Come now, I 'ave four booked. Where will I 
put 'em?" 

"Cawn't say, I'm sure. Where were you 
thinking of?" 

"On that car, to be sure." 

"And who will you get to run it awfter you've 
put four more on?" 

"Wot d'ye mean by that?" 

"I mean I'm already carryin' more than I 
should on an eighteen boss machine, an' I'll not 
break down for no man." 

"Very well, then; I'll see n?e guvner abaht 
this." 

"See yer guvner. My guvner's as good as yer 
guvner any day." 

(Pleading) "Well, won't ye take one more?" 

"Awsk me pawsengers. Much I care." 

Appealing to stocky Englishman: 

"Cawn't ye take another in there, sir?" 

(Passenger) "I've pide for a seat, hand I'm 
sittin' hin it. If you can see hany spice abaht 
me, give it 'im." 



Coaching to Glengariffe 281 

As there was no vacant space about him the 
hall porter gave a respectful sigh and walked 
back up the hotel steps to make his peace with 
the four disappointed guests. We suspect thai 
the grief of the hotel management is not of the 
deepest variety. 

At Kenmare there were five disappointed peo- 
ple. At this town we should have lunched, but 
we were transferred to a coach and four without 
side curtains. We had to superintend the lug- 
gage and we saw our hotel labels falling like 
autumn leaves as the damp baggage was dragged 
over the roof of the motor coach and shoved into 
the basement of the other vehicle. Our tickets 
entitled us to a motor ride all the way, but it 
was a condition that confronted us and we 
meekly took our seats. In fact, if we had not 
taken them they would have been grabbed up by 
those in waiting. Both could not leave the 
coach, so B. perched on the back seat and emu- 
lated Casablanca, Roderick Dhu, J. G. Cannon, 
and other stand-patters, while I ate a bite, paid 
for a dinner, bought some sandwiches and 
relieved the garrison, which by this time was 
besieged by the allies, English and American, 
who wanted to go to Glengariffe. 

They were finally put into the motor from 
which we had been evicted and later passed us. 



282 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

snug and dry, while we did our best to keep out 
the rain with umbrellas. 

The ride was a beautiful one, even under 
those depressing conditions. The road was bet- 
ter than a United States highway, but would 
have been closed for repairs in France. 

We climbed up and up, past rock and heather, 
until we could look back and wave a damp 
farewell to County Kerry. Our course lay along 
the Kenmare River, which is very wide at this 
point. We passed through a two hundred-foot 
tunnel in the rock into the County of Cork, after 
which the coach made a gradual descent into the 
green and fertile valleys that surround Bantry 
Bay. 

Much of the drive was between miles of 
fuchsia hedges red with bloom. The heather 
seemed a brighter purple for the rain. Daisies 
and buttercups were everywhere. 

Always take the right hand side of the coach 
from Killarney. You will thereby have most 
of the scenery diluted with all of the moisture. 
But be sure you have a seat somewhere. Book 
it as soon as you know your day of departure. 
Bring up the subject frequently with the hall 
porter, and when the day arrives climb into the 
coach and sit down. It is undignified, but 
effective. 

We drove through the village of Glengariffe 



Coaching to Glengariffe 283 

with its two or three stores and half dozen 
"pubs," some "six day" and some "seven day." 

We have ridden seventy miles and Roche's 
Hotel looks very good to us as we climb down 
from the coach. It has stone floors throughout 
the first story. Our room and the halls are paved 
with the same material. 

We enjoy some of Glengariffe's famous lob- 
sters, play a game of billiards and go to bed 
while a terrific thunder and lightning storm 
plays without. 

In the morning the sun shines brightly and 
we hope our luck has changed. 

There are one or two ordinary English words 
that you seldom hear in Ireland. A Hibernian 
horse v/ould be puzzled if you said "Whoa !" but 
would stop instantly at "Steady" in the proper 
tone of voice. In the same way "yes" is seldom 
heard. "Aye" is the affirmation in some cases. 
Usually, however, they make their answer into 
a declaration, "Are ye goin' to Limerick the 
day?" 

"I am." 

"Is your father well to-day, Katie?" 

"He is not." 

The Bantry coach will pick up passengers at 
Roche's Hotel at ten thirty. Most of the guests 
are excited over the presence of Lord Kitchener 
in the hotel. There were only three unafifected 



284 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

by it last night at dinner; we two, because we 
did not know it, and Lord Kitchener, because he 
attached no importance to the fact. 

After breakfast we drove out to Lord Bantry's 
cottage, a neat little shooting box by the bank 
of a roaring stream. The Bantry name has died 
out and the estate now belongs to a nephew of 
the last lord. There is no charge for admission 
to the grounds. This is the first case of the sort 
we have encountered and, coming so soon after 
Killarney, the generosity is even more highly 
appreciated. 

Our drive is through beautiful natural scenery. 
Last night's rain has beaten the petals from the 
rhododendrons until our path is strewn with 
blossoms. 

We walk around the cottage, which a maid is 
just opening for the day, and drive back through 
the village to Cromwell's Bridge. This was 
built in twenty-four hours by Cromwell's order. 
Although two hundred and sixty years have 
passed, two arches of the bridge still stand. It 
makes a pretty picture, with moss and ivy cover- 
ing the gray rocks and the sparkling little stream 
running beneath. 

We return to the hotel. Our ninety minutes' 
ride, which started in sunshine, terminates in 
a pouring rain. 

About eleven o'clock the ten thirty coach 



Coaching to Glengariffe 285 

drives up. It is a motor coach and we make the 
ten or eleven miles to Bantry in forty minutes. 
Our road circles Bantry Bay and affords glimpses 
of the water all along the way. 

Bantry is a very much soiled village with a 
beautiful bay and a muddy depot platform. It 
has a refreshment room where lunch or tea 
baskets are put up for travelers. 

A hotel in Glengariffe displays a sign, "Den- 
tists call here on alternate Tuesdays." Consider 
the plight of the man whose tooth starts to 
trouble him on an alternate Wednesday. 

Bantry ends the coaching for travelers bound 
east. When the weather is as bad as we have 
had it that mode of conveyance is surrendered 
without a regret. 

Between Bantry and Cork the fields are like 
those of England. The ride takes about two 
hours and a quarter. 



286 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXVII 
Cork 



nHE sun is shining so brightly when we 
reach Cork that a jaunting car is 
ordered forthwith for the trip to 
Blarney Castle. A wiser and cheaper 
mode would have been by trolley car. We dis- 
cuss the matter of wraps and conclude to take 
rain coats. Half way to the Castle, some clouds 
roll out from the horizon and in a few minutes 
we are in the midst of a heavy rain. 

We stop at a cottage belonging to an old man 
and his wife. They are both past seventy and 
in receipt of old age pensions. The cottage is 
clean inside and out. A cat, a hen and nineteen 
chickens share the interior, at least during rainy 
weather. 

The old people welcome us heartily and bring 
chairs from the other room. We sit and chat for 
almost an hour while the rain beats on the 
thatched roof. 

Their story is not an unusual one in Ireland. 
They have had twelve children and raised eleven 



Cork 287 

of them. Four are in America, but the parents 
do not hear from them often. The old man 
starts a tirade about one of the girls who mar- 
ried badly or did not marry at all, but the 
mother quiets him. 

Each has a pension of five shillings a week 
from the government. They pay a shilling a 
week rental for the cottage and an acre of 
ground. That gives them a net weekly income 
of nine shillings and what they can raise in 
their garden. They are very comfortable. 

Blarney Castle was built in the fifteenth cen- 
tury by Cormac McCarthy. It is a picturesque 
ruin, and has been famous in song, story and 
jest for centuries. The celebrated Blarney Stone 
is near the top of the tower and almost inac- 
cessible. Notwithstanding the discomfort and 
positive peril of kissing it, hundreds do so every 
year. The aspirant must lie on his back, put his 
hands over his head and grasp two parallel iron 
bars, extending perpendicularly downward. 
Then he must be lowered by one or two persons 
who hold him by the ankles until his head is 
below the Blarney Stone. If he still retains 
consciousness he raises his mouth to the under 
surface and osculates. We did not do it. We 
did not see anyone do it, although we did not 
talk with any Irishman who did not say he had 
done it. The man who takes the risk involved 



288 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

certainly is entitled to all of the persuasive 
eloquence thereby conferred. 

After our visit to the castle a shower kept us 
penned up in the little post-office at the Blarney 
Station for another fifteen minutes, after which 
we drove back to Cork in bright sunshine. 

A stop was made at Shandon Church to hear 
the bells of Shandon "that sound so grand on 
the pleasant waters of the River Lee." They 
fully merit their poetic reputation. 

The sexton has a large and varied repertoire 
and will play anything for you from "Old Hun- 
dred" to "Suwanee River," including, of course, 
such Irish favorites as "Those Endearing Young 
Charms" and "The Harp That Once Through 
Tara's Halls." He charges you nothing, but 
adopts the more remunerative plan of "Lavin' 
it to yer honor." 

Father Prout is buried in the yard of the 
church whose bells he so dearly loved. His name 
was F, S. Mahony, but he lives as "Father Prout" 
in the hearts of thousands. 

Cork is a fine city, with good pavements, well 
lighted streets and a modern tram equipment. 
It has many interesting sights, which are over- 
looked by most tourists in their rush to visit 
Blarney Castle. It is the. first Irish city seen 
by travelers who disembark at Queenstown, most 
of whom come immediately to Cork. 



Cork 289 

Queen's College is very new. In comparison 
with Oxford it looks as though it had been built 
yesterday. It is a growing institution, with a 
good library and fine gardens. 

The Christian Brothers have a large fed brick 
building on a terrace overlooking the river. 

The Cathedral of St. Finn Barr is the finest 
building in Cork and should be visited. 

The residence section of the city is especially 
attractive. There are many beautiful homes, 
with well kept lawns and gardens. 

The small boys who beg for pennies should 
be suppressed. They give one an unfavorable 
impression of Ireland and the practice does not 
develop good citizens. No need exists for such 
beggary and it is a serious reflection on the town. 

Vaudeville flourishes in the larger cities of 
Ireland at low prices. There are two evening 
performances, from seven to nine and from nine 
to eleven. At nine o'clock it is light enough on 
the streets to read ordinary print. 

Cork barbers are efficient, cheap and very 
rapid. A hair cut requires ten minutes and costs 
eight cents. This does not permit a very lavish 
use of linen. If you allow it, your face is washed 
with a joint stock sponge. 

A sign indicates that the thin edge of the 
increased cost of living has been introduced in 
Cork. It reads, "On account of shorter business 



290 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

hours and increased expenses, Beard Trimming 
will be charged two pence (four cents) extra 
apart from hair cutting." 

The usual continental chair is used, with 
head rest adjusted by inserting a wooden peg 
in the back of the chair. The customer dries 
his own face with the towel about his neck. The 
towel is placed in a sterilizer and used again. 
He also brushes his own clothes. Alum is dis- 
played in such liberal quantities as to be 
disquieting to a nervous person. 

A tramway leads to Blackrock Castle, past 
some pretty villas with high sounding names. 
They are walled off from the road by stone 
fences. 

No strap hangers are permitted. Rule IV on 
the card in each car prohibits the playing of any 
musical instrument in the cars. Rule XVIII 
prohibits loaded firearms. These two rules should 
stand or fall together. 

Blackrock Castle is supposed to be the place 
from which William Penn embarked for America. 
It is now used as a club house by a rowing club. 

The banks of the river are walled with solid 
masonry within the city. A statue of Father 
Mathews, the temperance advocate, adorns the 
upper end of St. Patrick's Street. His church 
was Trinity Church, near Parliament Bridge. 

Once in a while a statue disappears. One of 




BLARNEY CASTLE 



Cork 291 

George II was found in the river one morning. 
The large one to Robert Emmet and the Boys 
of '98 has never been molested. 

Again we were reminded that when traveling 
abroad a wise man and his luggage are never 
parted. The hall porter, in spite of our emphatic 
directions to leave things alone, had sent every- 
thing to the station to be checked to Lismore. 
We hail a jaunting car, drive to the depot, and 
find eveiything labeled "Lismore" and waiting for 
the train to be made up. We have the hotel 
porter drag it forth and restore it to us. He 
stands in front of us, cap in hand, waiting to be 
tipped for his blunder. 

"Ye'll have plenty of toime fer the Lismore 
train, sorr. Ye have no change, sorr." 

And we reply with a coarse, brutal chuckle; 

"You are right. We have no change." 

A tip is a pardonable outlet for gratitude in 
a case where actual service is rendered. Most 
travelers submit to having tips extorted by 
servants who have done nothing, except to get 
in the way. A hall porter may give you sug- 
gestions that will save you time and money. A 
tip in such a case is all right. On the other 
hand, he may load you up with unnecessary 
expenditures in the way of carriage hire, for 
example, in which case he should look for his 
reward from his accomplice, the driver. 



292 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

We are proud to record the fact that we gave 
the hall porter at Cork nothing. He had been 
an obstruction and an expense. On a basis of 
strict equity, he really owed us money, but we 
did not press the claim. He had urged upon us 
a two dollar ride to Blarney Castle when for a 
few pennies we could have used either tram or 
railway and reached there more quickly and 
comfortably. 

As we left the hotel six or eight cars were 
loading with Americans bound for Blarney. 
They came into Queenstown on last night's boat. 
The hotel owns the stables from which the cars 
are obtained. 

When you land from a night steamer where 
^ for six or eight days you and your fellow pas- 
sengers have comprised the whole world and 
only the aged or the sea-sick wanted to waste 
time in sleeping, try to remember when you 
enter a hotel at midnight that you are surrounded 
by travel-stained and weary pilgrims whose only 
opportunity to sleep is at night. Be quiet. That 
. is, be as quiet as you can without injuring 
yourself. 

Books should not be the media for airing 

personal grievances, so we say nothing of the 

lady and two children who landed last night and 

f^ were assigned to the room adjoining ours, nor 

of the grief that followed the announcement that 



Cork 293 

Katherine must occupy the single bed, a decision 
that was not reached hastily. Each child was 
allowed ample time to present her side of the 
case. The reader is not interested in the specific 
instance, but is entitled to the general advice 
given in the foregoing paragraphs. As much as 
we love our country, right or wrong, we must 
record that after hearing the lady's voice and 
noting the lack of discipline with the children 
we murmured, "Americans," and resigned our- 
selves to the inevitable. 



294 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXVIII 
County Waterford 



I N route to Lismore we pass through 
Ballyhooley. It causes an involuntary- 
smile. The town is absolutely feature- 
less and we do not stop, but the name 
is so double-end-edly Irish that we like it. 

Lismore is in County Waterford. There is 
one good hotel there, the Devonshire Arms. It 
is not always represented at the trains, but that 
makes no difference. Insist upon it. Take no 
other. The runner for the Blackwater-Vale 
House will tell you that it is just as good. He 
is mistaken. 

We drove to the Blackwater-Vale first, but 
before registering we asked to see the room. 
The linen looked as if the laundry was delivered 
by Halley's Comet and had missed a trip. The 
bar was crowded with noisy men, although it 
was Sunday. 

The porter good naturedly carried our suit 
cases to the Devonshire Arms, where conditions 
were altogether different. There was only one 



County Waterford 295 

other guest at the hotel, but that made no differ- 
ence to the management. The hotel, together 
with the rest of the town and the castle, belongs 
to the Duke of Devonshire. It is maintained at 
a high point of excellence and a big loss in order 
that travelers may be comfortably fed and lodged 
while on the Duke's estates. In a manner the 
patrons of the hotel are the guests of Devonshire. 

This is not the only evidence of public spirit 
in the Devonshire family. The late Duke built 
the railroad as far as Lismore and paid for the 
unusually handsome station. Later he sold the 
property at a loss of half a million dollars to the 
railroad company which extended the line. 

The Lismo/e possessions are self-sustaining, 
thanks to the rentals in the town, but the hotel 
and castle are money losers. 

Lismore Castle is one of six palatial homes 
belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. Chats- 
worth is probably the finest and costs a fortune 
to maintain. 

The present Duke has only visited Lismore 
Castle once, staying three days. At this time 
he is living in Devonshire House in London. 

The Castle is closed on Sunday, but we are 
hospitably welcomed to the beautiful grounds 
and gardens. The lodge keeper allows us to 
wander about unattended and only joins us when 
requested to show us the best point from which 



296 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

to photograph Raleigh's Tower. This ruin is 
beautiful, with the softened coloring and rounded 
edges which decay gives to old age. It antedates 
Raleigh's time many years. 

The views of the Blackwater from these 
towers are superb and are considered among the 
finest in the south of Ireland. 

Our visit to Waterford was a piece of rare 
good luck. It was not on our itinerary, but 
having three hours and a half to spend some- 
where between Lismore and the Vale of Avoca, 
we chose Waterford. It was a fortunate 
selection. 

The river Suir flows between the town and the 
railroad station. A bridge of thirty-nine arches 
spans the water. The central section is movable 
for river traffic. It was formerly a toll bridge 
and was owned by a Boston capitalist. He col- 
lected a cent from each person who crossed it. 
Bicycles paid two cents and horses six cents. 
It was an exclusive franchise and it was killing 
the town. Two years ago the corporation bought 
out the owner and abolished the tolls. Soon 
they must build a new bridge, as the present one, 
never a very substantial alifair, shows signs of 
age. It is a sample of Irish financiering. 

Waterford has twenty-seven thousand people 
and its streets are clean and busy. Rents are 
very low. One old residence where we were hos- 



County Waterford 297 

pitably welcomed is rented by four clergymen 
of the Roman Catholic Church. It has fourteen 
rooms and is a well built structure. Its wood- 
work and stuccoed plastering show that it was 
once the home of wealth. The rental is eight 
dollars a month. 

Reginald's Tower bears the date 1003. It was 
built by Reginald the Dane. In 1171 it was held 
as a fortress by Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke. 
In 1463 a mint was established here by Edward 
IV. In 1819 it was "re-edified" in its original 
form and turned over to the Police Department. 
We climb up fifty or sixty steps between narrow 
whitewashed walls and see beneath us the river. 
It is hardly worth the effort. 

Earl Roberts' family comes from Waterford. 
The general was born in Cawnpore, India, but 
was raised here. 

Within the Cathedral is the tomb of Strongbow. 
Those who are fond of the unusual and ghastly 
will be fascinated by the monument of James 
Rice. By his will he directed that his body 
should be exhumed twelve months after death 
and sculptured as it looked then. It was faith- 
fully done. The inscription reads, "I'm what 
thou wilt be ; I was what thou art." 

General Anderson is buried here. He con- 
ducted the funeral services of Sir John Moore, 
so graphically described in the poem by Wolfe. 



298 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

The Fitzgerald tomb is interesting. It shows 
the monkey in the family crest. This commem- 
orates the deed of a pet monkey which rescued 
an infant heir of the family from a burning 
house. 

The pillars of the old Danish Church form a 
foundation five or six feet high for the Cathedral. 

The ruins of the French Church contain much 
of interest. It was built in 1240 by Sir Hugh 
Purcell. The Franciscans were expelled from 
it in 1554. A second story was made in 1560 
by roofing the nave and used as a hospital. In 
1698, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
the Huguenots came to Waterford from Tours 
and used the upper portion as a place of wor- 
ship. Earl Roberts' ancestors came at that time. 
About twenty members of his family are buried 
here. 

Sir Neil O'Neil, one of the generals of James 
II, managed to get this far after the Battle of 
the Boyne and died of his wounds July 8, 1690. 
James II was over night in Ballynakill House 
before escaping to France. 

Robert Lincol died in 1630. When the Rev. 
Franquefort and wife needed a tombstone, in 
1779, the thrifty parishioners used Lincol's and 
cut a new inscription over the old one. It looks 
like a typewritten manuscript with the machine 



County Waterford 299 

out of order or two photographs on the same 
plate. 

The Roman Catholics have a fine Cathedral, 
but they have blundered by painting in bright 
colors over the beautiful stucco work. The 
effect is theatrical. The roof of the Chamber 
of Commerce shows a fine example of this old 
stucco and makes you regret the painting of the 
Cathedral more than ever. 



300 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXIX 
The Meeting of the Waters 



D 



T takes two and a half hours to go from 
Waterford to Wooden Bridge. The 
latter is the station for the Meeting of 
the Waters. It is raining hard, but 
our disposition to grumble is rebuked by the 
optimism of a car driver. He is standing in 
the rain. He has no umbrella and is dripping 
at every point. A friend passes and greets him. 
He salutes and says, "It was a gr-r-a-and day we 
had yesterday, sorr." 

George V is certainly the raining monarch 
and an undoubted member of the family of 
Wettin. It has poured down with slight 
intermissions since we landed in Ireland. 

It is raining when we reach Wooden Bridge. 
There is a porter at the depot, but no vehicle. 
He says it is only five minutes' walk to the 
hotel, and to our surprise he tells the truth. 

There are two junctions of rivers in this 
neighborhood, each of which claims to be the 
one to which Moore referred in his poem. The 



. The Meeting of the Waters 301 

lower meeting is near the hotel, where the river 
Aughrim flows into the Avoca. The hotel people 
assert that it is the spot. 
Although he wrote 

"The last rays of feeling and life must depart 
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my 
heart" 
Moore was not sure which valley he meant, but 
thought it was the upper one, five miles from 
Wooden Bridge and near Castle Howard. 

In order to be safe, we drive to the nearer 
scene first and find in it nothing wildly inspiring. 
Two rivers could hardly join in a more prosaic 
manner. There are water and pebbly shores and 
shady banks such as usually characterize such 
localities. 

The drive to Rathdrum takes you past the 
other, which is undoubtedly the real. Meeting 
of the Waters. This is where the Avonbeg and 
Avonmore form the Avoca. 

We strap our luggage on the car and start 
out with the sun shining. In half an hour a 
hard rain catches us. We draw our rugs about 
us and drive under the cover of some big beech 
trees. These form a perfect shelter. 

Another lull gives us an opportunity to pro- 
ceed and we reach the celebrated spot in a few 
minutes. It is the Meeting of the Waters. 
Castle Howard looks very formidable and very 



302 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

strong at the top of the hill. The guide says, 
"There's the Meetin' of the Waters, and I wish 
some one wud tell me what there is to it." 

Deprived of its association with the poem 
there is very little to it. Two streams thirty 
feet wide meet and flow placidly on. There is 
scarcely a perceptible current. The vale is pretty, 
but so are many others in Ireland. The trees 
are green and the hills are covered with grass. 
Moore's poem furnishes the attractive power to 
a magnet that without it would not draw an 
ounce. But for that, not one traveler in ten 
would pause for an instant. 

Moore's Tree stands a mute monument to 
enthusiastic vandalism. It is dead, murdered by 
the stabs of countless tourists. Now its skeleton 
limbs are raised to heaven in dumb denunciation 
of its despoilers. 

Charles S. Parnell lived along the road between 
here and Rathdrum. His house sits far back 
from the driveway in a large, well kept domain. 

Some sheep are being sheared as we drive 
along and we are courteously permitted to photo- 
graph the proceeding. All present are interested 
in our manoeuvres, none more so than the two 
alert collies. 

We drive into Rathdrum in time for the 
twelve eight train to Dublin. Luncheon is served 
at the depot. 



The Meeting of the Waters 303 

Dublin is always "town" in this part of Ire- 
land. When a man says he is "going to town" 
he means Dublin. 

The railroad from Wicklow follows the coast. 
There is bathing at the pretty little beach at 
Greystones. 



304 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



m 



XXX 

Dublin 

HE name means "the black pool," but 
there is nothing in Dublin to-day to 
suggest such a gloomy condition. It 
is a bustling modern city, perhaps the 
best lighted in the world, and one of the most 
sanitary. 

But it was not always so. The river Liffey 
was formerly an open sewer. Streets and alleys 
reeked with filth. Visitations of the plague were 
frequent in "the good old times." Black pools 
were numerous. 

In 1840 a reformed corporation took charge. 
An adequate water supply was provided. In 
1 89 1 the sewage was taken from the Liffey. In 
1896 $1,750,000 was borrowed for house clean- 
ing purposes. Its present system will take care 
of ten per cent more people than are in the 
city. The water tower has replaced the round 
tower. It is less picturesque, but more practical. 

The Bank of Ireland occupies the Parhament 
House on College Green. Uniformed attendants 



Dublin 305 

show visitors through the building. Over the 
portico is a sculptured group representing 
Hibernia between Commerce and Fidelity. This 
form of wavering has distinguished other 
parliaments. 

The House of Lords is a small room. One 
hundred and three peers occupied it. Thirty- 
two sat at the large table in the center. The 
rest were on a cushioned bench around the wall. 
The latter were allowed to vote, but not to talk. 
Every loyal Irishman hopes to see the day when 
the money changers will be driven from his 
temple and a parliament again assemble on 
College Green. 

Across the way is Trinity College. It has a 
fine library of three hundred thousand volumes, 
together with manuscripts and autographs of 
incalculable value. The chief prize of the col- 
lection, the most beautiful book in the world, is 
the Book of Kells. This is an illuminated copy 
of the Gospels done in the monastery of Kells in 
the seventh century. The microscopic delicacy 
of the work defies description. The initial letters 
of the chapters are gems of the highest art. No 
one can form an idea of its beauty without seeing 
it. Although more valuable than the Crown 
jewels, it rests unguarded in a glass covered case, 
protected by its absolute uniqueness. A thief 
could not sell it, could not even show it. It is 



3o6 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

the one art treasure of the world not to be 
measured in money. 

On the wall is an ancient map of the world 
antedating the voyage of Columbus, and hence 
offering no hint of the Western Continent. 
Jerusalem is represented as the hub of the 
universe. 

In front of the entrance are statues of Gold- 
smith and Burke. The former never succeeded 
in graduating. He was not studious, and just 
what moral the authorities mean to impress by 
his statue is not clear. It is not unusual for the 
decision of a college faculty to be reversed, but 
the fact is not usually called attention to by the 
college itself. One of their prized possessions in 
the library is Goldsmith's name cut by himself 
on a pane of glass, doubtless when he should 
have been studying. The collection of auto- 
graphs contains those of Swift, Samuel Johnson, 
Milton, Elizabeth and Mary. 

The oak chandelier was brought over from the 
Irish House of Commons across the street. 

Wellington was born around the comer near 
the Dublin Museum. 

Robert Emmet was born in Dublin in 1780 
and executed in 1803. The sad story of his short 
life appeals to all the world that loves a lover. 
But for his desire to see his sweetheart. Miss 



Dublin 307 

Sarah Curran, he would not have been captured 
when he was. 

Dublin is a picturesque city and abounds in 
delightful drives. It has a magnificent setting 
between Dublin Bay and the Wicklow Moun- 
tains. It has many statues. Nelson's pillar is 
one hundred and thirty-four feet high. Father 
Mathew is commemorated as well as O'Connell. 
A good deal of fun is poked at the statue of 
Thomas Moore in College Street. Harder things 
than fun have been thrust at the statue of 
William III, which has on different occasions 
been blown up, torn down, tarred and feathered, 
because it recalls to the world the Battle of the 
Boyne. 

We drive past Dublin Museum, and look for a 
moment at the monument to Queen Victoria in 
the quadrangle. St. Stephen's Green is a beau- 
tiful square, thanks to the generosity of Lord 
Ardilaun, better known as Sir E. C. Guinness. 
There are many other evidences, in Dublin, of the 
philanthropy of this stout knight. 

We are shown through the state apartments of 
Dublin Castle and view the same roped ofif rooms 
and linen covered furniture that are shown in 
all castles. 

The chapel of the Castle is deservedly proud 
of its carved wood, but at present this is com- 
pletely enveloped in mourning for Edward VII. 



3o8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

Our drive takes us past some model tenements 
erected by Sir Edward Cecil Guinness. Dublin 
drivers are as enthusiastic over him as are rural 
jarvies in calling your attention to the manor of 
the local lord. From every point of view they 
will point out his immense brewing establishment. 

A driver will pull up his horse so suddenly 
that you almost fall out, and say, pointing with 
his whip : 

"There they are, sorr." 

"What?" you exclaim. 

"The breweries, sorr." 

Sir Edward has undoubtedly enshrined him- 
self in the hearts of the people by his treatment 
of his employees and his many philanthropies. 
No knighthood conferred during the present 
generation met with more popular approval and 
no baron of old ever had a more loyal following. 

In a way he emulated Dick Turpin by getting 
his money from the rich and giving part of it to 
the poor. No liquor is perrrtitted to be sold on 
the premises of his tenements or in the buildings 
controlled by him and occupied by his employees. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral was repaired in 1864 
by Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness at a cost of 
$750,000. Swift was its dean, 1714-45, and his 
tomb is within its walls, beside that of "Stella," 
Mrs. Esther Johnson. The bust of Swift was 



Dublin , 309 

put up by his publisher and the fact is mentioned 
thereon. 

The old chapter house door is preserved. It 
has a hole in it made to permit the hand-shaking 
between two combatants, the Earls of Kildare 
and Ormonde, in the reign of Henry VII. 

The driver told us that St. Patrick's Well 
had been closed and evidently considered it a 
partisan move on the part of the present occu- 
pants of the Cathedral. The verger showed us 
the slab over the well and said it had been cov- 
ered up as a sanitary precaution, as the water 
had grown unfit for use. 

Christ's Cathedral is on the site of an old 
church built in 1038. It was rebuilt in 11 70 
under Strongbow. It fell in 1562, leaving the 
north wall in its present condition. It was 
restored in 187 1-8. 

It has an interesting monument to Strongbow 
in the nave. Beside him lies the torso of a 
truncated figure supposed to be his son (or half 
son), who was slain by his father for cowardice. 

We start for Phoenix Park and have an experi- 
ence, unimportant in itself, but so characteristic 
as to merit recording simply as a warning never 
to believe an Irish driver on the subject of the 
weather. 

We were driving along leisurely, when a bank 
of black clouds formed in the west and com- 



3IO Three Weeks in the British Isles 

menced to roll toward us. We said it looked 
threatening. The driver said it would not rain. 
It commenced to sprinkle. We told him to find 
shelter. He drove serenely on and said it would 
soon be over. We had been soaked while trav- 
eling in the rural districts, where there was no 
alternative, but we did not propose to drive 
through a densely populated city in a rain storm. 
We ordered the driver to drop us at some shelter 
and told him he could drive on and be damp if 
he so desired. 

Muttering that it was "only a mist," he per- 
mitted us to take refuge in a livery barn and 
drew the car up alongside of the curb. In five 
minutes the floodgates of heaven were opened 
and it poured for half an hour. Our company 
gradually grew larger and less select as the 
storm continued. 

The rain ceased as suddenly as it had started 
and we resumed our drive. We urged haste in 
getting to Phoenix Park, as it still looked cloudy. 

Our driver's ardor was the only thing 
undampened. 

"There'll be no more rain, sorr." 

"That is what you said just before that last 
cloud burst." 

"There'll be no more." 

"It will rain inside of ten minutes. To the 
Zoo!" 



Dublin ' 311 

He obeyed and before we reached the turn- 
stile of the zoological garden in Phoenix Park 
it was pouring. 

We gladly paid a shilling each to enter the 
grounds and found shelter in the monkey house. 
There are disadvantages connected with a mon- 
key house on a damp day that will doubtless 
occur to the reader, but it was dry. 

After half an hour in the monkey and lion 
houses the rain again slacked up and we started 
out to visit the scene of the assassination of 
Burke and Lord Cavendish in 1882. Naturally 
enough, the spot is not conspicuously marked, 
but our driver showed us the little cross at the 
edge of the walk where the murders were com- 
mitted. Near by is the seat where Carey, the 
informer, sat and pointed out Lord Cavendish 
to the assassins. They were mourning the event 
in Chats worth a few days before we visited it. 

Phoenix Park is large, but not so beautiful 
as many American parks. It abounds in trees 
and grass, but has few flowering plants. 

Sackville Street is one of the finest streets in 
the world. It is very wide and lined with 
attractive shops. Trams run along it to every 
part of the city, but there are no taxicabs in 
Dubhii. 



312 Three Weeks m the British Isles 



XXXI 

Chester 



rfXljE take a train at one fifteen at Westland 
1 1 fl Row to Kingston, where the boat to 
IJ^I Holyhead awaits us. Read that over 
again and pronounce it "Hollyhead." 

At Kingston it is pouring as we go aboard a 
fine twin screw steamer, the "Anglia," a part of 
the Dublin to London passenger service. By 
this excellent route Dublin and London are less 
than ten hours apart. 

The sea is as smooth as glass and our three 
and a half hours' ride of sixty-four miles is 
uneventful, for which we are duly thankful. 

Holyhead is on the island of Anglesey, which 
is connected with the mainland by bridges. 

The railroad skirts the north end of Wales 
for an hour and a half along the coast of the 
Irish Sea, past the bathing beach at Rhyl, with 
scores of splashing, laughing bathers. 

We arrive at Chester and go to the Grosvenor, 
in the heart of the quaint old city. The man- 
ageress and her assistants are dining at a table 



Chester 313 

in the -rear of the office. We almost create a 
panic by insisting on having some laundry work # 
done in twenty-four hours, but gain our point. 
It is not easy to hurry things in Chester. 

This is indeed rare old, quaint old Chester. If 
you can recall any other terms of endearment 
you may season to taste. You cannot overdo it. 

If, when in Chester, you desire to see the 
oddest buildings and streets in England follow 
the advice given to the tenderfoot looking for 
a faro game in Tombstone : Go out the door and 
turn either way. 

It is Fairyland. It is the most fantastic of 
stage settings spread over several blocks. You ^ 
half expect to see Harlequins and Columbines 
pirouette from some of the Rows. When you 
ask a policeman for a direction you are a little 
surprised that he does not turn a flip-flap and 
salute you before he replies. 

We walked out last evening, ascended to the 
second floor sidewalk and joined the strollers. 
Frequently we would step into an alcove and 
look at the equally quaint opposite side of the * 
street. Then we would pinch ourselves and grin 
at each other as we realized that it was not a 
dream. 

Children almost upset us in their rompings, 
and so perfectly is the town built for hide-and- ^ 
seek and other games that we. felt that we were 



314 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

intruders and would have apologized had they 
given us sufficient time. 

We only walked two or three blocks, but we 
have two or three weeks' photographing planned 
for to-day. 

We will walk around the old walls and then 
shoot up the town. We are glad that we left 
Chester until the end of our trip. It is the 
picture we wish to remember the longest. 

Chester was for years known as West Chester. 
It was a camp (castra) of Ancient Rome in 59 
A. D. It has always been the last ditch of a 
retreating army. The Danes held it against 
Alfred the Great. It was the last stronghold 
captured by William the Conqueror. From its 
towers Charles I saw his armies defeated on 
Rowton Moor. Will England and Germany ever 
meet on this historic ground? A great many 
Englishmen believe that they will. 

The Rows of Chester, its unique architectural 
feature, were probably formed when the street 
grades were lowered, thereby exposing the cel- 
lars. Some say they were built as a defense 
against Welsh marauders. 

God's Providence House on Westgate Street 
is a beautiful example of timbered construction. 
On its front it bears the inscription, "God's 
Providence Is Mine Inheritance." The story is 
that during a plague in the seventeenth century 



Chester 315 

this was the only house in the block not visited 
by death. The reason for this discrimination is 
not clear, but it was probably an evidence of 
Divine approval of superior sanitation on the 
part of the inhabitants thereof. 

The walk around the walls is interesting. 
Starting at East Gate, we walk north to Phoenix 
Tower, whence Charles I watched his -defeat at 
Rowton Moor in 1645. 

It cost us a penny each to look at the battle- 
ground from the Tower. There are Roman 
antiquities and German atrocities for sale on 
both floors. The proprietress of the lower estab- 
lishment assured us that only her part of the 
tower was genuine and that the upper part where 
we had foolishly spent our money was recently 
restored. In order to be safe and on the ground 
floor we bought some post-cards in her estab- 
lishment. 

It pleased us greatly to see some real careful 
Americans at this Tower. Do not be deluded 
into believing that every American abroad is 
wildly extravagant. There were eight in this 
party and they sent one of the men up into the 
second floor to investigate and see whether it 
was worth a penny or not. He came down and 
reported adversely, so they each bought a post- 
card except the man who had already spent his 
penny. He said there was no hurry and he 



3i6 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

guessed he would wait. When a man is caught 
once that way it makes him more careful. 

We walked west past Morgan's Mount and 
Pemberton's Parlor. The latter was repaired in 
1 701 and looks as good as new. Bonwaldes- 
thorne's Tower is so small that its name sticks 
out of it two feet and is used as a gargoyle. 

Behind it is the Water Tower, which is not a 
water tower at all, but marks the point where 
ships formerly tied up when the Dee was at 
high tide. It was built in 1322 for one hundred 
pounds by Helpstone. We are glad to lend our 
little aid in extending the fame of this unusual 
contractor. 

We "took" all of these walls and towers much 
more easily than the Conqueror did, but he did 
not have a kodak. Chester was an old city ages 
before William began to conquer. It was old 
in 607, when ^thelfrith wiped it out of exist- 
ence. People then said it could never "come 
back," but it did. It had an "I remember when" 
club in 100 A. D., that used to meet and tell 
about the first landing of the Romans in 59. It 
has been a fortified city for eighteen hundred and 
fifty years. 

But not with these walls. These walls are 
new. They were not built until the fourteenth 
century. Some of the mortar is not dry. How- 




THK ROWS 



Chester 317 

ever, nothing outdoors in England is dry this 
month. 

This Water Gate, by the way, was the most 
important of the city's gates. The Earl of Derby 
had it in his own charge. Each gate was assigned 
to some nobleman, and this was Derby's. There 
is an underground passage from his former 
residence near St. Nicholas Street, just oflf West- 
gate Street. The passage leads to this gate. 
The Earl used it when there was a teamsters* 
strike or if for any reason he desired to avoid 
publicity. We will tell you more about that 
later. 

From Water Gate we walked and walked 
until we were visibly growing shorter. Then 
we hailed a tram. 

"Stop at the Castle, please." 

We did not say, "Do you go past the Castle ?" 
That would have betrayed the disgraceful fact 
that we were tourists. No, we stole a glance at 
our Baedeker and said, "Stop at the Castle, 
please." 

The guard took our "tuppence," rang up two 
fares and said: 

"We pawsed the Cawstle before you got on, 
sir." 

We said, "Never mind. Don't go back. We 
will view the suburbs." 

This we did for a few minutes and caught a 



3i8 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

return car. Then we found that what we had 
taken for a power house was the Castle. It is 
now used as a jail and barracks. The entrance 
gates are rather impressive, but bear no resem- 
blance to any other part of the structure. 

An excellent equestrian statue of Marshal 
Combermere stands in front of the gates. He 
served his country as a soldier and was active 
on the Peninsula and in India. 

Farther along a thirteenth century bridge 
spans the Dee. It is in much better repair than 
the one built by the American gentleman at 
Waterford forty or fifty years ago. 

The Wishing Steps on the old wall require 
some rather difficult conditions. There are sev- 
enteen steps and you must run up and down them 
seven times without taking breath, and then 
whatever you wish for you will receive. We 
did not wish for anything. This ended our walk 
around the walls. 

The Church of St. John has fastened on its 
north door a polite appeal for funds to maintain 
the structure. You find a box, deposit a coin 
and then discover that in order to see the ruined 
portion you must make a further contribution 
for the maintenance of the sexton and his family. 

We are shown through the picturesque ruined 
choir and amass some conflicting dates. Baedeker 
says that these walls were crushed by the falling 



Chester 319 

of the central tower in 1470. The guide blames 
it on Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. The 
one indisputable fact is that they fell and made 
a pretty mess of things. 

The Chapter House was the dwelling place 
of De Quincey in his youth. The chimney hole 
made by his mother in the room used as a 
kitchen is pointed out. Thomas may have learned 
some of his weird stories listening to the sexton 
distort history to tourists. At any rate he lived 
here for a while, moved to the Lake District with 
the poets, got into bad habits and died at 
Glasgow. 

There are some interesting Saxon crosses over 
a thousand years old in the Chapter House.' 

The Chester Cathedral dates from Alfred. It 
is the pantheon of the local great and you must 
have accomplished something of moment to be 
buried there. The mere accumulation of wealth 
will not entitle you to the honor. 

Its main or west entrance is never used because 
of its proximity to the streets. Nevertheless, 
like all cathedrals, it must have its main door 
at the west end and its high altar at the east. 
You need no compass in a cathedral. The altar 
is always at the east end. 

The public uses the south door. There are 
some ascending steps to the left leading up to 
the closed west door. From the top of these is 



320 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

a good view of the full length of the building, 
three hundred and fifty-five feet. 

The glass is modern, but the old tracery of 
the windows is beautiful. Parts of the Norman 
structure, eight hundred years old, are incorpo- 
rated in the present walls, but as a rule they 
"restored" things six hundred years ago about as 
they do now, by altering them past recognition. 
The stone and wood carving in the choir seats 
and screen is particularly fine. 

One bishop, who really should have been a 
Roundhead, he was such a destroyer of beauty, 
painted most of that exquisite carved oak. It 
had to be scraped and soaked in potash for a long 
while to remove the paint. Now, instead of the 
rich black polish which time would have given, 
it has an ashy, domestic finish, that almost ruins 
its appearance. But for the masterly carving it 
would be unsightly. 

The misericorde seats are each carved with a 
different design. Some are Scriptural, some are 
funny, and some are both. One group repre- 
sents a wrestling match, and in another two 
people are struggling for possession of a seat. 

The carving of the pews is well done. These 
were overlooked by the bishop, or he ran out of 
paint. They are as black and shiny as mahogany. 
One represents the early-angel idea, with feathers 
all over the body, including the limbs, a sort of 



Chester 321 

Shanghai angel, that has become extinct in art. 

The cloisters are picturesque and interesting. 
The refectory is used as a practice room for the 
choir. The walls of the cloister are cracking and 
restoration has set in. One side already looks as 
new as a corner drug store and the rest will soon 
be like it. 

The Cathedral departs from the usual cross 
formation and is unsymmetrical in its ground 
plan. The south transept is four times the size 
of the north transept. The monks wanted to 
enlarge the cathedral in the fourteenth century. 
The monastery buildings on the north prevented 
any growth in that direction, so they built a new 
church for the congregation of St. Oswald's and 
tore down that church on the south and erected 
the large south wing or transept. A hundred 
years later they were compelled to re-admit the 
St. Oswald parishioners to that portion of the 
building. A partition was erected within the 
Cathedral. This remained until 1880, a portion 
of the south transept being used as a parish" 
church. Then a new church, St. Thomas', was 
built for them and the partition was removed. 

The Duke of Westminster owns most of this 
neighborhood. The Prince of Wales is heredi- 
tary Earl of Chester, but that does not procure 
anything for Chester. The Duke gave them the 
Cathedral organ and paid for most of the restora- 



322 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

tion. That does not necessarily mean the present 
Duke. We are under the impression that it was 
his uncle. The present Duke could do it without 
very serious inroads into his income. 

Bishop Lloyd's Palace is a quaint, old, wooden 
building, now preserved as a sort of museum. It 
dates from 1615. Some Americans tried to buy 
it and the Stanley House to bring to the Chicago 
Exposition in 1893. As a result of the local 
horror at the proposed sacrilege, money was 
raised to put the buildings in repair and take care 
of them. All right-minded people will be glad 
that the old houses were left in their proper 
environment, but will rejoice that the attempt to 
remove them stirred the local citizens into 
activity. 

Stanley House bears the date 1591, but it is 
probably older. The lady in charge says so, and 
she was so gracious in showing us through that 
we are sure she must be right. 

This was the residence of the Earls of Derby. 
There is a creepy secret chamber where the Earl 
was hidden for a long time, while food was 
smuggled to him by a faithful servant. Crom- 
well caught him finally and beheaded him. There 
is much about this Earl in Scott's "Peveril of the 
Peak." 

A trap-door in the floor opens on the under- 
ground passage to the Water Gate. 




CATHEDRAL CLOISTERS 



Chester 323 

Many of the basements in Chester are Roman 
crypts. The present tenants use them as cellars. 
The one at 11 Watergate Street is used as a 
wine cellar and extends back a long distance. 
There are others at 34 Eastgate Street and 12 
Bridge Street. 

At 39 Bridge Street is an old Roman hot water 
bath. It is fed by a spring. The heating 
apparatus is intact and the tub is full of water. 
This looks like carelessness on the part of the 
last Roman patron, but it is due to the spring, 
which keeps it always supplied. 

When you pay your carfare in Chester the 
conductor gives you a slip. This is simply a 
check on him and of no use to the passenger, who 
would ordinarily drop it on the floor of the car. 
Hence this polite notice is in all street cars : 

"In order to keep the cars and streets neat and 
tidy, passengers might kindly drop their tickets 
in the box provided for that purpose only when 
leaving the car." 

We simply skimmed the surface of Chester. It 
abounds in towers, crypts and Roman remains. 
It is the base for interesting excursions up and 
down the river and over the beautiful roads. 



524 Three Weeks in the British Isles 



XXXII 
Liverpool 



n 



IVERPOOL is within forty or fifty min- 
utes' ride of Chester and the trains run 
with great frequency. As a matter of 
fact, we went to the station intending 
to take the nine six train and found we were in 
time for a faster train leaving at eight forty-five. 

Evidently this is the hour for suburbanites who 
work in Liverpool to leave their homes. We 
pick up passengers at every station. The only 
thing that distinguishes them from American 
business men of the same class is that they do not 
rush down the platform at the last second and 
climb breathlessly aboard. 

We leave the train at Birkenhead (Woodside) 
and cross the Mersey on a ferry to the floating 
docks. There are sixty of these docks and they 
extend along the river for six or seven miles. 
Their mode of construction gives almost unlim- 
ited expansibility and permits of the docking of 
the largest steamers. 

In Chuzzlewit's day most of the ships were 



Liverpool 325 

American. In fact, America gave Liverpool its 
impetus as a port and is still the source of much 
of its prosperity. 

When we reach the docks we see our steamer 
in the middle of the river and learn that it will 
not tie up until within an hour of its departure. 
This is a great inconvenience to the passengers, 
but saves trouble for the officers and employees 
on the boat. 

Our limited stay in Liverpool, the bad weather 
and the number of things to be attended to 
before sailing prevent extensive sight-seeing. 

We spend a little while in the Museum, with its 
excellent zoological collection, showing the 
highest skill of the taxidermist. There are some 
wonderful things from Egypt, including dozens 
of mummies. One or two would seem to answer 
all reasonable requirements, but no English 
museum is complete unless it is crowded with 
these melancholy objects. 

South Africa also has been compelled to con- 
tribute to the conqueror's collection with all sorts 
of weapons, cooking utensils and articles of near- 
clothing. 

The aquarium is small and stocked principally 
with trout hatched on the premises. One seal 
with soulful, haunting eyes, swims around and 
around his tank, rolling up his optics at each 
revolution like a love-lorn schoolboy. 



326 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

The rain kept us standing on the portico of the 
Museum for half an hour before it slackened 
sufficiently for us to travel the short distance to 
Walker's Fine Art Gallery. 

One of the annual exhibitions was on. This 
year the works of Diirer are shown. After 
looking at countless etchings and engravings, 
we go upstairs and discover a most delightfully 
arranged room. It has cushioned settees in the 
center. We select the picture opposite the 
thickest cushion for especial study. It is a most 
restful landscape. Some cows are nibbling the 
grass and far away over the western hills the 
sun has set, bathing the sky in red and touching 
with gold the edges of a few light clouds. We 
fancy we can see birds settling to rest in the 
boughs of the trees. The sun sinks lower. The 
red glow darkens, the birds are hushed, and I 
am mildly wondering at the metamorphosis in 
the painting when a sweet voice says : 

"I don't believe you are looking at that picture 
at all. You were actually nodding. We just 
have time to eat luncheon and go over to the 
steamer. Come." 

The Bear and Paw on Lord Street looks invit- 
ing. We enter its portals and eat our last meal 
in England. 

Evidences abound to show that Liverpool is a 



Liverpool 327 

great cosmopolitan city and that this is the sailing 
day of an American liner. 

A merry party sits at a table near us. The 
wife is scanning the menu. 

"Just tell me once more, dear, how much is 
two and six." 

"Eight, of course. I am surprised." 

"You know what I mean. How much is it in 
real money?" 

"Sixty cents, honey, but don't you care. I'll 
pay the bill." 

We take a tram to the docks and watch our 
ship move slowly, oh, so slowly, alongside, and 
finally go aboard. Our luggage is safely stored 
in the stateroom and we return to the upper 
deck to wave farewell to the solitary friend who 
has come all the way from London to see us off. 

Finally, after several false alarms, all visitors 
are put ashore, the gang planks are raised, the 
big ropes are thrown from their moorings and 
splash into the water, and we move out into mid- 
stream, murmuring as we look at the turbid river 
the venerable jest, "The quaHty of Mersey is 
not strained." 

We lost some days in the British Isles through 
ignorance of what to see and when to see it. 
Bad weather curtailed our sight-seeing to some 
extent. 

Anyone following in our footsteps and elimi- 



328 Three Weeks in the British Isles 

nating several long trips, can see a little of each 
of the leading features in three weeks. 

Study your Sundays so as not to find yourself 
in a rural community with locked-up attractions. 
Eliminate the Lake District as a sight-seeing 
proposition. Omit Oban, unless you can give it 
two or three week days. You will see the 
Fingal's Cave formations on a grander scale at 
the Giant's Causeway. Go direct from London- 
derry to Galway and save yourself some un- 
pleasant experiences in the Connemara country. 

With these omissions you can see a little of 
London, a few cathedrals, the districts hallowed 
by Shakespeare, Scott and Burns, the Rob Roy 
country, the Giant's Causeway, Ireland at its 
worst and best, including the beautiful west coast, 
the Lakes of Killarney, and the cities of Cork 
and Dublin, and rest for a day or so in Chester 
before sailing home. 

After all, our only real grievance was with 
the weather man. With his co-operation assured, 
no trip on earth can offer more varied charm 
to the traveler from the United States or make 
him more proud of his kindred across the sea 
than Three Weeks in the British Isles. 




THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS 



MISS MINERVA aB 
WILUAM GREEN HEL 

By FRANCES BOYD CALHOUN 

^ Screamingly ridiculous situations are mingled with bits of 
patKos in this delightfully humorous tale of the South. 

^ Do you remember "Helen's Babies"? and "Mrs. Wiggs"? 
Do you recall "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn"? 

Miss Minerva and William Green Hill is every bit as 

genuine as any of these. 

^ ft contains a delightful little love story, but deals principally 
with William Green Hill, a six-year-old boy with sunny hair, 
a cherub's face, and a wonderful dialect acquired from the plan- 
tation negroes among whom he formerly lived. In the narration 
of the activities of Billy and his associates, Jimmy, Frances and 
Lina, the author shows an intimate knowledge of the workings 
of the juvenile mind and makes the pages sparkle with laughs. 

^From start to finish fliere is no let-up in flie fun. Any normally 
constituted reader of the book will soon be in a whirl of laugh- 
ter over " Sanctified Sophy," "Uncle Jimmy-Jawed Jup'ter," 
" Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's chillens," and the 
other quaint characters of this fascinating book. Their hearts 
will go out to lovable little Billy, and they will be convulsed 
by the quaint speeches of bad Jimmy, who says to his chum : 
"You all time gotter get Kttle boys in trouble. You 'bout the 
smart- Alexist jack-rabbit they is." 

Small 12mo. ; 212 pages; bound in scarlet 
clotn cover attractively stamped ; 22 clever 
illustrations by Angus MacDonall. Price $L00. 



When Good Fellows Get Together 

^ For all generous minds tliat have been young there is 
a radiance of loveliness that nothing can ever obscure 
over the Bohemian days of long ago. Remembrance 
hallows them : all their hardships are forgotten; through 
the mists of time they glimmer in unsullied beauty, com- 
ing back with their lost loves, their vanished comrades, 
their hopes that since have withered, their dreams that 
are dead and gone ; and the heart thrills to remember, and 
lor a moment the glory of morning streams over all 
the world. — William Winter. 

fl These lovely lines serve as the introduction to WHEN GoOD 

Fellows Get Together which is a most charming book — 

either to own or to give a friend. 

CJThe editor, James O'Donnell Bennett (Dramatic Critic of The 
Chicago Record Herald), has chosen with rare taste a compre- 
hensive ':election of quotations from a wide range of authors, both 
noted and little known, expressive of good-fellowship, optimism, 
uplift and cheerfulness. 

^ The following department headings give an idea of the range 

of the subject matter: The Good Fellow's Short Guide, 
XXV Toasts from Shakespeare, Meetmg and Parting, 
Eating and Drinking, Smoking and Dreaming, Living 
and Loving, Sweethearts and Wives, Playing the 
Game, The Golden Days, etc., etc. 

Printed in two colors on £ne paper and bound in dark green cartridge 
paper covers with an inlaid reproduction in three colors o( a beau- 
tiful painting by F. S. Manning. 12mo. 200 pages. Price $1.00. 
Bound in £ne Persian Ooze, gold stamping, boxed; price $2.00. 



MAR I I9M 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



mAri 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS #^ 

019 904 557 A 



-111 



